Genius loci: A Poem

Can you still be heard in those silent walls?

Do they still feel charged with your voice?

The violence within the bonework, across the

Skin, the hair, the smoke, the repulsive air, the

Scent of explosion, temper and falling onto the

Ground, shell across shell, windows bursting, bodies

Running, away, away from you, the things that

Jumped out of your mouth in a devastating hurry.

 

Are you still there? Is that where your voice stayed?

Is that where it went? The halls of reverberation.

The furniture destroyed and trashed. The animals

Feeling your rage, hiding, seeking your love, just like us.

Beggars, distorted, amputated, disconnected from you

And your conscience that I never thought existed.

 

The place where I slept, accompanied by every single

Heartache, the wounds that never ceased to end, the

Windows reflecting my grimaces, my hopelessness,

The solitude, and the house got emptier and emptier,

Cleaner and desolate, the history seemed erased, it’s all

In those walls, the desperation, the scrutiny, the dreams,

Out the chimney, I know you’re still there, as he is still

There, you’re in certain rooms, in certain objects, out

Of my body, it had been way too long, I made a choice, I let you

Go, violently, perhaps, that was the language you spoke,

I saved myself, it was an act of love towards myself and

The life that I wanted to live outside of the walls you built.