The trains stopped running the day you passed.
Songs rippled through the air made up
Of the wind rustling the autumn grasses,
The cicadas buzzing before they too stopped,
The last clicks of the train engines
Cooling off in the blistering heat,
But they weren’t songs I could sing along to anymore—
You rendered me voiceless, voiceless
For the second time in my life, no longer
Could I carry an aria nor any melody at all;
I was left to wonder how you could do it, how
You could leave me alone here with the cicadas
And the wind, how you could lay there
Under blankets of earth and not think of me
After everything, everything—
I wanted so badly to leave this place.
Maybe that’s why I’m so upset, because
You promised you would meet me far away from here
And that we would find all the loveliest places
Together, and now—will you come with me still?
Will you meet me far away? Can I still wait for you?
Is there a train left running for me to board
On the way to somewhere beautiful,
Somewhere uncanny but ghostless—?
Or are you as upset with me as I am with you?
I promised you I would sing for you
And I never did—to the cicadas, the wind,
The sound of the setting sun—
And I wanted so badly to leave this place
That I waited, waited for you
But you beat me to it, and now
There are parts of you planted around the train station
Forever waving to me, pieces of you
In every thing and every person I see, and really,
As much as I miss you, darling, I don’t blame you at all—
Not for leaving, not for loving me, not for anything.
But I’ll still be waiting here,
stuck, singing, and silent.