VOICEMAIL

 

VOICEMAIL

Voicemail echoes trace the chill of apathy in your tone,

a frost that lingers, indifferent and alone.

The balance tilts like the spine of the continental divide,

where once we stood, now nothing seems to reside.  Is this your life now—chasing shadows of vice,

a private Eden, just you and them, paradise for two?

That laugh of yours, raw and glacial-thick,

hides deep behind the mask you choose to affix.  Each word you speak feels like a wall, unyielding, cold,

a distance carved in silence, stories left untold.

I search for traces of the spark that once defined you,

now muffled by the weight of choices that confine you.

This is only my whisper, but I ache for the 'you' I knew—

the one buried beneath those thrift-shop scarves, waiting to break through.