"Listless is the air in an empty room...one fibre in the wicker arm-chair creaks, though no one sits there." ~ Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room


Part I
I sit in your chair.
    the big one, the one that makes
        you so commanding.
The one with the worn armrest
    and the permanent groove
        where you used to sit.
I get lost in your chair
    it swallows me up,
        a tiny fish in the sea.
My feet can't reach the ground,
    my head can't see over the top,
        the chair you always sat in.

The seconds are marked
    by the incessant ticking
        of the clock in the kitchen.
You laughed when you saw it
    that black cat with ticking tail and moving eyes.
        You said you had to have it.
The cat watches nothing.
    It's eyes flicker left to right.
        It sees nothing.
It counts the seconds
    with its swishing tail
        marking my empty hours.

I jump down from my high perch.
    I jump down from your beloved chair,
        the chair you always sat in.
                I want to have it destroyed.
I walk past the ticking clock.
    I walk past your laughing cat,
        the cat you had to have.
                I want to rip it off the wall.
I look at my dim reflection in the mirror,
    that hangs so delicately in the hall.
        How could you love something so ugly?
                I want corrective surgery, to take away the pain.
Because I wouldn't be me,
    because I wouldn't be here,
        because I wouldn't feel this.
                I need to get out of this house.


Part II
Rushing past the people
without a care in the world.
I don't pay attention to where I go,
who I see
and who I don't.
I can't. I must. I need to.
Maybe tomorrow.
But tomorrow turns into tomorrow.
and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.
and then too much time has past.
with nothing to show for it.
Not today, I can't handle today.
You can't go home.
You can't go back to the cat and mirror and chair.
Where else is there to go?

suddenly, there I am.
my feet carried me the whole way
without a thought from my head.


Part III
I kneel.
The cool breeze raises the soft fine hairs
that lay on the back of My neck
as the whisper wrapped around My name
catches My ear.
You are talking to Me once more.
I smile into the breeze
as Your compliments waft towards Me.
You tickle My bare arm that rests on the ground
as I watch an ant crawl over My knee.

You play with a strand of My hair
twirling it in front of My tired eyes.
I notice a worm digging into the ground
burrowing deep beneath where I sit.
You stopped the whispering.
You stopped the tickling.
You stopped the twirling.
I knew You were watching the worm too.
I plucked it out of the ground;
it had almost buried itself completely.
I held it, dangling, in front of My eyes.
and Yours too.
it twisted and twirled in the breeze
I threw it off to my right.
it landed with a small thud.
"there's no reason it should be
closer to You than I am."
I said to the emptiness
as I stroked the growing grass.

Epilogue (Part IV)
your journey ended, six feet underground.
mine has just begun, five hundred thousand miles
from here.
I try to go on, but it’s a struggle.
I try to remember, but it’s painful.
I wake up each day, lonely
without you here.
I survive, but I question
what could have been
and what is.

everyday the face in the mirror
becomes less sad
and part of me returns.
yet one question still remains
painted across my forehead:
how could you love something so ugly?