Love Poem: Farewell, Phantoms

Farewell, Phantoms

I, heart on sleeve ... proudly? I suppose, in a contrite way ...
          but it's beyond my breadth to control, so it is what it IS.
               Indeed, I am a "piner", pure, I keep memories replete in my
     pocket, like so much gleaming, priceless gold, and I take

Them out to polish from time-to-time, to warm the embers
          that eventuality and concern tarnish with time. With open
               allowance, I do so, making no secret of that which might
     be considered beyond everyday allocation or stake. Such

Prose is my purge, thus, but it is a knife with two edges,
          one cutting a swath demur, the need for it a critical expense,
               but the other slices humility, and those who are the focus
     of their creative intention, are made well-aware of the lucid

Agency of my heart ... such is the open payment for their
          raw, ripened benefit - poetry, songs, stories, posts,
               memes, odes to the ether ... offered up, not only for the
     sake of a veiled dedication to all that YOU, I and WE were,

But added unto the former, my hopelessly reckless and
          glaringly careless Spirit. I make no excuses for the fashion
               by which I lay bare the motivations and clear actualization
     that dwell at my core ... the world knows all too well how

YOU have put to your command the very breath that
          speaks your name, and the empty hopes of a return to
               the magic that WAS. But YOU are not the only sad
     phantom that visits my dreams, oh no, there is a more

Sacred and frequent haunting that I wake with, it's taste
          on my tongue even more decadent than yours ... its
               strangle on my heart, more sure and tenacious than
     any other ... the salacious battles that I wage with it

With regularity are epic, if not extraordinary. Exquisitely
          seductive in all details, sensual grappling with the perfection
               that only a first TRUE love can embody, and an all-consuming
     desire that will follow me to oblivion. THAT apparition of my

Slumber, as real in my dreams as she was in actuality, has
          played the final trump card, and called me on the bluff of
               my severed affections. At an unexpected time when I dared
     not anticipate it, that seductive specter found for me the

Answer I believed I'd never find for myself ... the answer
          to YOU, the answer to the fool I have made myself for
               your sake ... the answer to the laugh I hear whenever I
     see you in your happy new consanguinity, the final refrain

To the song that I wrote for you, the one you will never
          hear ... the scratch in the sand that is never there anymore
               when I turn to leave that Place, the answer to the missing
     harmony that matched my melody exactly and knew,

(Without words), what I would do next ... the answer to
          our perfect fit of hands, thoughts, dreams, plans, bodies,
               and the answer to all those intangibles that escape my
     descriptions here ... the very LAST thing I ever dreamed

I'd be able to apply to the visceral grasp you have had
          on my soul, and the sad finality to a hopeful thread that
               I've held onto for SO, so long ... closure, true. Oh, the
     phantom will haunt me again, I'm sure, and your visage

Will wring my heart of its silt, and wake me with your taste
          still on my lips ... but now, the dream's waning will take
               the residue of your love with it, the night's passing will
     lift my heart from your shadow, and I'll look ahead for my

Hope, instead of always behind me.