Performed by Val Cole

POEM:

We’ve broken things and smashed them,
torn them to pieces,
burned them and buried them.
Words left unspoken,
Love left unmade.
You took everything that I had,
and then you left me where I laid.

You soaked me with your love,
but then you hung me out to dry,
leaving me with nothing,
nothing but loneliness and pain inside,
when you said your goodbye,
and though you have spread your wings,
and taken flight,
we are still bound together,
by the lost things that remain.

I search in my heart,
And I search in my soul,
Where the lost things have gone,
I fear that I shall never know.

Remembering how everything,
used to glisten and gleam,
every single night I am ripped apart,
torn at the seams,
for all of these lost things,
still haunt my dreams.

I’ve climbed over mountains,
and travelled through valleys.
I’ve run through forests,
and swum across oceans.

I have dug holes,
in every lawn that I have seen,
and dove in every body of water,
whether murky or pristine.

Are they here?
Are they there?
You took everything when you left,
then dropped it everywhere,
as if you didn’t ever care,
now, I stand naked and broken,
with nothing left to bare.

The answers to the questions,
about where your love went,
I search for all over,
for every last drop that you spent.

The way you used to hold me close.
The way you melted when I touched you.
The way it felt when we became one, instead of two.
The way you said that no one could ever love me like the way you do.
The way your eyes smiled, when I lived inside them.
The way you yearned for me, to heal any problem.

These are the lost things,
that torture my soul,
and on the left side of my chest,
have left a gaping hole.

We are forever tied together,
by these lost things,
with deaf promises,
and invisible rings,
books with blank pages,
and sold-out theaters with empty stages.

Did you have to steal my heart?
Couldn’t you just have borrowed it?
No, you had to keep it for yourself,
please tell me where you left it.

Memories and phantom sensations,
hangovers from romantic intoxications.
These things used to be in a present state,
they used to be real.
Inside my body and my whole heart,
in a drunken stupor,
is where I lived.

But everything is gone now.
How could we have ever ended up this way?
Never could I have imagined,
that my love for you,
would over welcome its stay.
I kneel down to the ground,
and I wish, and I pray,
that my love for you,
might be welcomed back someday.

Until that day comes,
where you and I can find each other once more,
floating around in the infiniteness of space,
and in the womb of time,
these lost things shall remain.