Driftwood
Edges softened by sea, heart sharpened by absence
My name was lost beneath the storm’s design,
The words once mine now scattered in the rain,
Their meaning fades like paper torn by time.
No place feels native — soil and tongue entwine,
A longing hollows out what can’t remain,
Direction spins and loses its design.
The quiet trains become my fleeting breath,
With thought as company, I ride alone.
Old photos blur beneath a flickering sheen.
Each hour passes like a whispered death.
Yet still I scroll through faces I have known,
A memory of moments swept unseen.
Steel birds ascend to carve the clouds apart,
A taxi shaped from metal, loss, and flight,
Each landing lacks the welcome it should bring.
We trade the sky to silence out the heart,
And even peace feels hollow in its light…
Arrival never quite means anything.
I know I need her — more than spoken maps,
Her presence anchors me to what is real,
She steadies all the chaos I endure.
My orbit cracks and every compass snaps,
Without her warmth the cold begins to steal
Through every wall I thought was standing sure.
I need them too — the ones whose laugh remains,
Whose joy still echoes sharp enough to hold.
Their safety ties me to a fading shore.
I feel them through the shadow and the stains,
A rope of voices pulling me from cold,
A sound that finds me when I drift for more.
Now tides recede and shape me as they will,
The sea has smoothed my edges into grace.
A vessel carved from silence, salt, and pain.
Adrift, yet something in me lingers still…
I chase the curve of her remembered face,
And float toward her upon the moon’s domain.
-UpsilonA
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Floaty! A drifter who knows the shape of the shore suffers longing the most.
Beautiful, very clean lines. This one is my favorite: "I know I need her — more than spoken maps,"
Also, I like how you use the divider button to part your stanzas; that's a cool use of this interface.