The Emotional Orphan

I know you are out there still.
As surely as I know you live in my heart,
and at the forefront of all my thoughts.

I can feel you.
Intertwined as ever before.
Reading the signs,ears to the ground
Evaluating the test results and
checking for the vermin that is
sure to one day be in the traps you have laid.

Why wouldn’t they be?
They lived inside all the others.
They lived inside your head.
The slept where you did.
And they ate at your soul as if it was cheese.
Discarded table scraps.

They covered their stench,
and wore the clothes of a man.
The rats were revealed-after you’d been bitten.
The day didn’t always come when
they writhed in the pain they deserved
necks crushed by the spring or swollen from the poison

I check everything I do knowing these things.
And I feel you, praying I’m not dreaming.
And I dream of you, praying what I hold to be true really is.
Always aware. Aware of you always.
There is much more at stake here than you realize.
So much more for us if I’m right.

The only thing that holds any importance to me
is that you know I am still here.
That you know I know you are here too.
No matter what you say.
That’s what you do and I know that.
Because you told me and I was listening.
Unlike the rats who must rely on smell,
or vibration to know you are there.

And I wrestle with the fact
I cant just come out and tell you.
You say that’s not what you want me to do.
You don’t want me to tell you what you already know.
Im here waiting.

There is only a door between us.
Then another door to paradise.
I wait for the one to open.
I guard the key to the second one
until you step out into the sunlight looking for me.
With those squinted eyes, red from living in darkness.