The clockwork gears unraveling beneath my skin.
A labyrinth, a lifetime in the making, is burning.
The absence of your nearness has abandoned me.
I showered today for the first time since.
And I lie in the sheets, like my skin, that have been scrubbed clean.
And although the warmth is all mine, I can’t help but resent the emptiness of it all.
Just a few short hours ago, this skin carried the tales of days I didn’t think you would see me through.
The dust trapped in the sheets, the muddy scratches clawed into the once pristine linen, all shouting at the world that we are still suffering here.
I’m lying still, but the words I’m writing aren’t even my own anymore.
And although I lived through the shower myself and smeared the soap all over my naked body, I am still not clean.
Because replacing a soul, down to my very essence, the erasure of my presence, takes more than clean sheets.
Literary Musings 