Mazzy Sleep
LOST
Part 1
Drawings on the wall,
Chalked scripts, the
Slow breaths upon
The cold paper,
Letters running through the margin,
This is the last thing you ever
Said: a small drawing of a cat
In deep, ripe, plum purple,
Two blunted triangles for ears,
A dotted nose sloping into
A pressed mouth,
Two eyes staring blankly
Into the space ahead where once
They saw a creator.
Part 2
They are looking for you.
On the sagging sod of the forest
Floor, the markers
You have left behind
Murmur beneath the arcs
Of their feet,
The footfalls you have left
For them to find slowly being
Blown away in the wind
Like slices of paper.
The more they look,
The more faded you become
Part 3
The oblivious
Search party
Has been
Going down
The wrong path
Following the wrong
Clues this whole time,
And only now finding
What happened before you,
Heading away from
Urgency, ducking
To memory,
You are the heir to
The missing, so tell
Me, were you ever
Here at all?
Part 4
I could hear you, stumbling down the hall
Hush and sniff as you shuffle down
The cold hardwood in the quiet blue
Of the night while I was the burden
Of a mattress in the other room,
Listening to you say the silent goodbye
Part 5
Do you understand
The permanence,
The importance
Of a child in
A world where there is
No difference between
An argument and a war?
Part 6
The town has become
A bleary backroad, no
Longer coming into
The eye of the sun,
The grey border beneath the
Moon becoming more and
More thick as the clock
Hands move away from
When you first
Passed into the picture on
The milk cartons that I have
Begun, slowly, labeling each
With an obsession of caution,
Collecting.
Later you might
Pick them up one by one,
Stuffing them with stories
Of losing a liveliness
You never had
Here, look at this picture of you
It was four days in, I remember now.
You look awfully promising
For a child who’s as good as dead.
Part 7
Sometimes I wonder
If we are the only living
Beings on earth, if
We are the only ones
That think and see,
The only ones
With the glassy fluid
Oozing from our stark eyes.
Part 8
Nobody saw your face before,
And they will forget it again
When you turn up, but for
Now you must be the golden
Headed legend of
The town, every nook and cranny
Your possible hiding place
You are the hand shading this
Untouched land,
You are the she with no name.
