Letters to Me

for Shirin

Clearing up my junk, I came
Across an old, yellowed file.
"Letters to me," it said and lay
balefully on the pile.

Somewhere between the certificates
and the divorce decree
there lay a pile of sheets
that people wrote to me.

Rustling sepia pages
crackling with age
no letters from old lovers
as I softly turned each page.

There's one from my grand-dad
one from my mum does slide
then one from my godfather -- an ode
it said, made my eyes water glide.

So many close friends lost
to distance, to despair, to death.
But rustling yellow footsteps
dog my every breath.

Time it was and what a time
it was; a time of bafflement,
a time of consequences.

And the rustling pages roared at me,
"There goes the girl that broke
barriers and breached to a fault
with every word she spoke."

Letters from forgotten friends
remind me of each face;
A time warp builds around me
that lonely lonesome space

when distance do us part
Death needn't have a hand
And despair and longing then forms
a thickset lumpy strand.

Deep, wondrous emotions
Jumped, leapt off the pages:
Where did we let those connections go
never remembered for ages?

Never look back, it's a sad way to walk
Though odes do rise and shine
How much love was showered
on this little heart of mine.

And those who are gone, forever gone
leaving deep black holes in my heart;
why are the dead forever dead
Gone, all gone, when they depart?

Slowly I put back the letters
in their own little places.
Another year, another season
will vanish as time races.

Keep them safe for me,
My old, yellowed file.
Hold them and cherish them
till I finish the next long mile.