It won’t be long until you won’t find me there. It’s been a long time coming. It’s been unbecoming, my holding on, day in, day out, for you to find yourself where I’m losing all sense of belonging. My living, here, just isn’t cutting it. I got a gut feeling it won’t be getting much better, either. With or without you, I’ve got to get going. There’s no promise of anything better, but what else is new? I’m used to it. I’m pro at missing out on what’s plain as day. Absence made itself felt at my expense, and now my soul pays for it, but still, your presence of mind made up for it, giving me something to go off. Some way, I’ll never find my way back here. The time’s come. Tomorrow waits for my step, but I’m gone. It’s all been done before. Off the edge of a silver forest, a sliver of an opening offered a way forward, but, not for two. It took me in, alone, its gloom heavy on the boughs overhead, its shroud light on the ground, its mystery rising as I’m down on my knees, its chorus barely a whisper… Into its twists and turns, my soul remains true— in its mists, my step founders and ceases— in another life, I will keep on walking should our paths cross, in another time, we would’ve gone on…
Garrett R. Bruner (he/him) is an archivist for archaeology projects, processing ancient Greek script related collections and serving as a site archivist for two Roman villas near Pompeii, Italy. He writes poetry daily since 2016 and it is forthcoming in The North Dakota Quarterly. He lives in Austin, Texas.
