The Cannon

's Creative Competition

I used to rush home from work every day, hoping to see your face. Ignoring the immense pain rushing through your veins, you’d greet me with sparkling eyes and an everlasting smile, asking how I was.

But now, when I open the door after a dreary day, I step into the quiet abyss you’ve left behind. I keep telling myself this is just a bad dream, and you’ll soon be there to hug me again. I can’t wait to wake up from this terror and hear your voice fill the room.

As I walk through your garden, I feel the gentle breeze, the rustling leaves, the fragrance of the flowers you nurtured with your own hands – all still so alive. But as I step into your room, I see the dress you loved, catch the lingering scent you wore... and the deafening silence of your absence hits me.

Your half-eaten bag of candies. The book you left half-read. Your bed, and your empty chair. Everything frozen in time. Just so lifeless now.

You left it all just as it was, and everywhere I look, I just see you. You were right here. Just a week ago. And now, not anymore.

You said I should stay well, and keep others well too. If only you knew my whole life revolved around you. I hope you know how much I love you.

Yet, I have to move through life. Because you’d want me to. But when the lights dim and the house grows cold, when the sun sets and my world fills with despair, I am left yearning for you. Knowing that you’re gone forever.

All that was left unsaid is my longing and desire, / The spark that silently, we tended into a fire / With your courage giving shelter to my fear / And my eyes, shedding for you a tear / To protect you from grief’s strangling wire.

Our friendship felt shallow when you were near / But flooded the city when my tortured eyes watched you disappear. / My heart yearns to put to choir / All that was left unsaid.

In the light of you, urgency feels more dire / I am renewed, filling fresh my hollowed feelings prior. / I hope to find you once more my dear / So I may tell you all the things you deserve to hear / All the thoughts I whispered to my lonesome in the roar of this campfire / All that was left unsaid.

In the sea of blue spruce, I have lost the stars to the needling conifers,

And the flakes that fall in an endless squall. Where do I end and the mountains unfold?

The only sound is thrashing wind, only scent is frosty air, only sight is bitter white. Hold fast to pinprick Polaris—

Know it is the same as the one in your heart. Robin-red engine, I toil through this tempest,

And trust the tracks to carry me home to meet bleak northern sun; it climbs

Craggy rock and frigid peak while I whistle birdsong in the breaking dawn.

So still the boughs all bowed with snow, In the After there is light.

I know it’s fall I can feel it in my fingers I meet new people and I have to repeat my name

Leaves fall into rainwater Rainwater seeps into my boots I go home, I go to bed I fall asleep with my boots on Will you pull them off for me? I know you’re still awake

My boots always wear down in the same spot: The back of the heel, just a little bit up Fabric peels away to reveal hard plastic You told me, once, you did so much walking The soles of your boots came clean off

You get drunk in your dorm And I stay sober at the bar I meet new people and I forget my name