Among the Living

I've become
  a creature of solitude
attended by silence
  an ember
I wallow in alone


until


I remember


Pain and fatigue are not all
  this body has felt


and 
  then


there is the 
  lingering lifetime slide
    of lips across lips
the shadow 
  of a caress
a stealthy tangle
  of hair in hand
exposing
  a still
    thundering pulse here.

Well

for years you spat your words

into the well of me

and for the life of me 

i have been dredging them up

watering bitter roots

and drinking them down

accustomed to the taste of their poison

always that first sip sweet

as a memory created of 

things meant to be

of fate or destiny

but I have become dried up 

and tired 

a husk of wondering if there's

any me left

at the bottom of that well