Slumber

“Slumber”

Someone said there is a path untrod
Known only to those who face their God
I said I would meet you when I kissed your brow.
Though the stars stand in the way, even now.
Shall I wait ‘till they fall from the sky?
They said, “There is such pain when you die.”
And I cannot help but drink of that slumber,
Delving into dreams without number.

There is no moving on with goodbyes left unsaid.
You’re just supposed to lie down and to be dead.
And which of us dreams now at the end of love?
What, beyond the stars, are we dreaming of?

All my tears are waiting for one of us to die.
All my tears are waiting for you to reply,
To see the moonlight spilling on your hair,
For one last moment that we could share.
But when I turn, no one is there…
All that I see is what’s left of yesterday,
Watching shadows of what was decay.
I passed a cemetery, and I longed to follow
All that went slumbering a hundred years ago.
So that I would weep no more—
That is what my tears are waiting for.

You never held me, but I could pretend,
I could have left you, but I was frightened.
Not of what perhaps you might do
But of what I would be without you.
When I’m wishing you’d come back to touch me,
Lying awake, so filled by a feeling so empty…
I wonder if I could learn to say goodbye.
But I have never learned to tell a lie.
And you make it seem like it is meant to be
Every time you come to take your life from me.
Was I a mistake that you keep at a distance?
Am I a sin that you hold in reverence
As you make your way to the door?
The answer. That is what my tears are waiting for.

© 2022 Marten Hoyle