The One I Was

Another name, another world.
Tendrils of the past, they reach out to me
and then are gone.
I cannot touch them, like a ghost
they slip behind walls the years
have encroached.
I remember the form, I see the curve
of her breathing, restlessly in lamplight
while she should be sleeping.

She was me, or I was her
and somewhere she got left behind
like the page of a book I dogeared for later.
I wonder if she'd be afraid
if I told her the clouds had not yet cleared
and the path had not yet neatened.
Even on this side of spinning earth
her fears still cheat her,
no I won't tell her.

Can I walk backward through mirrors
or through pictures, but take my treasures
with me?
Can the book be rewritten,
where pages turned too quickly
and ink, uncharted scribbling?
The story has twisted, it makes no sense,
has disconnected
me from her.

I wait in lamplight where I should be sleeping
but I am restless,
yet I am breathing.
Quiet pencils scrawling as the pages
continue turning, dog-ears in creases
pressed for later.
But what will I gain from turning back
to old spaces where people
don't live anymore?