Edward Lee

THIS SILENT PAIN

Stared at the sun
too long in my effort
to be alive, now 
everything has become
a ghost floating across my vision,
the only cure for which
being rooms of darkness
for days on end,
the perfect environment
for my mind to begin murmuring again
of the peaceful sense
to be found
in the bottom
of all this night,
this potentially endless night.

CHOICE

I didn't kill you,
but I didn't
try to keep you living,
though how 
I could have done
such a thing,
I don't know,
when the decision
was never truly mine
to allow you to be born,

but I could have tried,
in whatever way I could find,
even if it was no more
than a promise disguised
as an argument, or vice versa,
whichever made the most sense,
and in that attempt
avoided this guilt
that catches my breath
when it greets me
every morning I wake
from troubled sleep,
the shadows of possibility
hidden in dreams
still clinging to my skin.

WHAT WE HAD

We slept at different hours,
our waking lives
barely crossing over,
yet we lived in love
for four years, almost five
now that I think of it,
never once wanting more
than what we had,

until our sleeping lives
became disturbed
by the sleeping life
of another, one
which aligned with yours.

Flights, Issue Nine, June 2023