The Heart Sutra

I closed my eyes in Goa 
And opened them in your room
You sat there playing guitar - mangled fingers on smooth strings 
Making magic
Magic I felt you stole from me

A shelf with old books missing covers
Walls the colour of the deep ocean
That old familiar musky smell of a basement 
unattended and unappreciated for too many summers. 
Carpets covered with leaves that crunch under my feet 
as I walk to wash a mouldy cup to make some tea. 

I think of all the lives you've lived in this place
All the distractions - the obsessions that made you leave this place so unattended 
That made you leave me so unattended - in the end 

You are gone now but I visit this place in my head when I close my eyes
Scan the room for secrets - messages from my memories that might answer my questions 
Why did you give up -
Why did you let go - 
Why did you stop reaching for me - 

Form is nothing more than emptiness 
I sit on your bed swaddled in the purple sheets I gave you
Staring at the flame of the little green candle on your beside table - I bought it because it smelled like a Christmas tree
Everything beautiful here I brought for you
Everything I brought you didn't notice. 
But it's all empty
All transient
That moment no longer exists. 
What is beauty other than what I label so. 
Form is only the beauty or ugliness i project onto emptiness 
I projected you
And you projected me
So it goes 

Emptiness is nothing more than form
In the emptiness of my head I see your form
A golden face on a chartreuse pillow 
Peppermint tea and mischievous smiles 
Bodies empty of self and full of each other 
I opened my eyes and projected my dreams on to your insides 
And you watched them with fascination 
You kissed my shoulder while I slept 
and swallowed my nightmares 

In emptiness there is no form 
No taste, no smell, no consciousness 
Laying on a hammock in india I remember you
The smell of masala spice fills the air
A puppy sleeping on my shoulder
The wind is soft and the tobacco is strong 
I wonder if whatever you took from me was never mine to begin with
I wonder if whatever you gave me was never yours at all
I wonder if the miles and miles of emptiness between us
Is no different than the space I felt when you were lying right next to me 
We are empty of each other now 
I don't taste you
I don't smell you
I don't know you anymore
Perhaps I never did.
Perhaps in the end it will only be me I will ever know.
And that is enough.