Poetry in Prose

Within the vague depths of my dream, I hear your distant call. I know it’s your voice, for it leaves my heart and my soul longing, my fingers trembling, my eyes widened. It is your voice for it draws my feet in your direction. I run anxiously, without pausing to breathe. I run like a madman, my shadow chasing after me.

Your voice grows louder. I can discern your face, the melancholy in your eyes, the warm air leaving your lips – all through the sound of your voice. I reach a cavernous corridor, with no doors in sight; just a long, narrow path that doesn’t seem to end.

I call out your name. Your name, your divine name, almost like a prayer. The only offering my lips can make to this celestial altar of the universe – your name. I do not use it in my dreary reality. It is reserved for innocence and piety, reserved for dreams.

I call out your name and the veil of darkness lifts around me. Your name draws in light, like the sun. As this dismal darkness disappears, I see my hands and my feet for the first time. I come to exist upon calling your name.

You respond to my call. Your voice, strong and unambiguous, is ever so close; it is almost tangible. You run, with me, but on the other side of the wall. We run and we run; calling each other, growing weary with each step. There is no door. The wall is endless.

I’m exhausted. So are you. We stop, or maybe we fall. I’m not sure. But we cannot run anymore. I rest my hand upon the wall. “You’re here, aren’t you?” I hear your voice wrapped in a soft whisper, seeping through the pores of lifeless concrete between us.

“Yes,” I reply. My throat is parched, my voice barely making through. 

“I can’t run anymore,” I hear you say. “I’m hurt. But you can make it to me. You must. The wall ends just up ahead. I know.”

I tell you that my legs will not support me anymore. I cannot get up. “Don’t give up now. You can make it. A few more steps and you’ll be with me.”

“I can’t,” a silent sigh escapes my lips. My hand still rests on the cold wall. So does yours, I’m sure. 

“A few more steps.”

“I can’t.”

“A few more steps?”

“I’m sorry.”

The end of the wall lies within my sight. But my body refuses to move. I feel dead; expect for this wretched heart, beating louder with every passing second, and pumping anguish and despondency into my veins. My insides hurt.

“A few more steps. Please?” Your voice sounds distant. I feel it slipping away from me; like sand from in between my fingers. I scratch the wall. I hit it. I hit it again. I press my hand against it; I can’t feel yours anymore.

I call out your name. Nothing. My screams are met with silence. “A few more steps,” I tell myself. I crawl towards the end and make my way to you. You’re not there anymore. I’m too late. The wall on your side is neither cold nor lifeless. It breathes; through leaves, and moss, and flowers. It is immaculately preserved for as far back as my eyes can see.

I lie there and watch the life that you so delicately nurtured, decay. You are gone and your side of the wall is dead, only left with traces of how life used to be.

I pick up a leaf, trampled by my ignorance. It is dead, but it reminds me of life. That is all I have left of you – a lifeless silhouette, a discarded piece of you. It is yours, but it isn’t you. My heart aches. It is left with a gaping hole, a hole shaped like your silhouette. No one else can fill it. No one else can fix it.

“A few more steps,” I hear myself say. Again and again, incessant, like the wall that I built between us.