A Séance the Only Way I Know How

Downturned eyes.
I’ve spent so long crawling towards a glance across the page.
Across a plane of something plain that I need to build upon.
I carve out a face from a million years ago in ink and a processed sliver of wood, bleached and cut to my desired shape.
Smooth like the floor I lick the scraps of whatever memories I can conjure up of you and what you looked like in a romanticized version of the past.
I remember how good it felt in the arms of someone forbidden to hold me.
I wrestle with the knowledge that you wouldn’t if you could.
I’d like to convince myself that I don’t know that.
That your feelings about me were as much of a mystery as how I ever got so lucky as to meet you, but so cured as to never know you.
Never cling, never stick.
I’m cursed to carve a face that’s fading from my feeble mind.
If I’m alive for a reason, let it be to see you in the palm of my hand as I resurrect you with pen and paper.