you are not here

you are not here.
and I can feel your absence, a hole
in time and space. and in my soul,
where you should always be, and yet,
when you are not here, I regret
every time I spoke words you doubted
and thought false passions when I shouted
them in metered rhyme that I might best
remember them, later. truth you can test
with the sound and the semblance of pain
I carry within me when you are absent, vain
though I am I am humbled by you and ache
for your absence so mightily that I break.
you are not here.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.