Noel Negele

Longing 

Woke up today
and missed you
more than the 
manageable amount 

a person can get
used to living 
with a ghost of the past 

but haunting 
is haunting 
and it takes its toll

I called in sick
to work

sat on my chair
with my construction 
clothes on,
just off the phone 
with the site manager 

still holding the banana 
I force feed myself 
each morning 

just after realising
I can’t cope today

I look at my bed
that has no sheets—
unable to sleep either.

What type of person
doesn’t even put sheets
on their bed 

me, I don’t 
and I wear my hoodie at 
night sleeping because
I haven’t renewed the gas card
and the house is as cold 
as somebody’s garden 

All the money spent 
for drugs and booze—
anything to carry you 
from one day to the next 
even though time will come
it will drop you on a hole
covered with your own feces.

One night 
I suspect
crossing a bridge 
I won’t make it all the way
to the other side of it

There will be a splash of water 
one cold night.

“Somebody dropped in!”
they’ll say
but they won’t be able to see me.

Shutters drawn.
Thin blades of morning 
grey light 
cut through the darkness 
of the room 

Sitting here 
and I miss you

so much so
at times 
it becomes a longing

a feeling I’ve heard
can poison a man
over time 

and how the time 
has passed

years have run away
from the both of us 

years apart
like a barren wasteland 
of time that will always
sit there
between us

all the hours 
of longing 

Sitting here
and I miss you 
as outside 
the black of the coming night 
is the same depth of dark
we’ve grown accustomed to
since childhood

and how I wish 
you were in my bed
asking me to be tucked in

the most beautiful 
woman in the world—
you in your pajamas
curled up next to me
on the couch 
on those cold nights 
of winter 
or those hot nights
of Mediterranean summer 

ghosts of past happinesses 
are hard to silence 

I think of that bartender 
at the local pub
that opens at eleven o’clock

I contemplate of calling 
for some opioids

It’s the same fight
time and again

trying to smother the longing
before it smothers you

cutting your losses
with a sobering acceptance

adopting a scorched earth 
policy on your own heart