Clouded Ghosts

Still, the bitter longing holds to this who won't have us for more than a moment
We cough up words like temporary anchors
That never venture to the depth of heart
Where we safely guard their name
And keep a vacancy for their head to rest

Love's inoculation steadfast to the blood
Cells screaming for bodies we know will grow cold and distant
Tombs of incapability drifting across oceans
Away from all we have to give

Pretending we are unaware they never had interest
In seeing us as infinite, even when looking in our direction
Even when our eyes pull the raw truth of who they are from them
In the ways they wish another would but never will

These trying times in which our pulse leads us in pure steps
To the flesh and bone and beauty of what walks out of sight
Clouded ghosts chasing their own unattainable grace
On a chain of desire that never seems to loop back the other way

I am told loving those who don't love us back
Is karma for having not noticed those who once loved us
Such unfair pain in existence
Such unpredictable currents in the wet sand beneath our feet

Always contemplating being washed away
Even when we know they won't come looking
For the bodies that breathed life and water
In mimicked rhythm to the internal beats
They never realized we could feel from miles away, always
Even in the murkiest midnight of tides

Our hearts incapable of understanding the hardness of what our minds can
So, our veins continue playing compass towards homes we cannot live in
While the earth does its duty and swallows us whole