Thoughts Never Shared
No hourglass will hold the sand that sifts
through my fingers at this moment.
As I stand here, my thoughts
are of the present we could have had.
Walks on the shore.
The shells we would take
as mementos. Your favorite
dish with linguine, you scoffing
at any choice that has shells or rotini.
Laughter, as we share a private joke.
Talk of our future, our eyes locked,
communicating in unspoken words.
The ether holds my closest connection
to you now, your name mere pixels
before my eyes, never fully in focus.
Messages never sent languish,
familiar only to me.
I place one message in a bottle,
turn to the shore behind me, and cast it
into the future we’ll never have. I turn back
to gaze into the desert before me.
This poem is my response to Day 4 at napowrimo.net, where the prompt is to use a photo from @SpaceLiminalBot for inspiration. I chose the above image, also seen here.
Per napowrimo.net: “liminal,” in other words – a place or sensation that exists at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold, neither one thing or the other, but something betwixt and between.
This WordPress editor is driving me crazy!!
~ Day 4 ~
rivrvlogr 
OMG, Ken; I can’t click “like” for this — not because I don’t like it, but because I try never to like anything that breaks my heart when I read it, which this does. I’m happy to share your heartbreak, if it takes any of your away. This feels ultra real, and is clearly and perfectly enhanced by the photoprompt.
Meisterverse.
The details of shell-gathering, Italian cuisine, the shared private joke, and (especially) your bottled message…Mind-numbingly great. Awesome.
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Thanks so much, Ron.
It’s all imagined fiction.
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Oh so poignant.
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Thank you.
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You’re welcome Ken
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May be imagined fiction, but it conveys some very realistic heart tuggings.
I am puzzled by the duplicated last stanza … ?? (Late in a long day – what am I missing?)
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Thanks, Jazz.
There are 4 stanzas to this poem. Every time I close the editor and go to the post there’s another glitch in the format. (The reason for my rant at the end of the post.) Sometimes it’s an extra photo stuck in the middle, sometimes it’s extra stanzas. I think I finally got it fixed.
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Tugged at my heartstrings. Glad it’s just fiction to you. And I happen to think that the poem did a great service to the photo you chose. Wonderful. All the best. I wish you miracles.
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Thank you, Selma.
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Those private jokes are the essence of entwined lives. You’ve captured the desolate isolationin the photo. (K)
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Thank you, Kerfe.
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My goodness, goes straight to the heart.
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Thanks, Paul. Fortunately it’s fiction.
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Yes, but the power of it ….
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Moving back story for a desolate photo!
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Thank you.
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the Desert of the (almost) Real… ~
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For some it’s a fine balance.
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