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To Andrey Kneller's previous piece     To Part II

Separation

Life will one day return to normal.
There’s nothing that time can’t tame,
and her name, 
on the page of the daily journal,
will dissolve on the fiery tongue of the flame.
 
Somehow, I’ll have to adjust and forget her. 
Love is neither eternal nor constant. 
We’ve parted. 
I’m sure that it’s all for the better.
Her features will fade with the russet sunset.
 
Why do I lie to myself? It’s never that easy.
My head is tolling like a church bell tower.
Bumping into the trees,
I’m coughing and wheezing,
and so far it’s been only a half an hour.
 
The onlookers watch, not daring to help me...
Get out of my way, I’m a raging elephant!
Don’t you hear how my soul is yelping,
gripping the bars 
of the trembling skeleton?
 
Don’t you see how I’m stumbling, 
sad and wearied,
with the weight of affection around my ankle?
Clearly, it’s love... clearly
it’s love that has me this mangled.
 
I’m losing faith in the power of calendars,
time is no medicine for separation,
and hours scatter around 
like scavengers
eating, eating away my patience.
 
I must have a fever, I’m shaking and quivering,
Talking to no one, conversing out loud.
Isn’t that her 
crawling across the ceiling?
hanging up overhead like a dismal cloud?
 
I’m hallucinating, I cannot escape her...
Leave me alone, don’t you see I’m grieving?
Her smile appears on the face of my neighbor.
She mocks me and whispers to me, 
“Good evening.”
 
People,
wherever I turn, she appears to follow.
On every face, I seem to notice her grimace.
Everywhere that I look, I can see her shadow.
Look, up there!
up in the sky, she shimmers...

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