the letters i never sent to you
lie in an unseen corner of a locked drawer,
as neat and crisp as they were
on the day they were written
in sudden moments of ink-stained
lucidity, or of mad insight.

those days i woke up alarmed
with your face behind my eyes,
where my mind conjured it up
from where it was buried
in some unseen corner of locked-door memory,
neat and crisp, too,

like the letters i never sent,
and which you weren't really meant
to read.  they are all just words
and words, words borrowed
from other women also ink-stained

and lucid, insightful and mad;
words culled from the woman
i had become, after a time, after
a fashion, after you.
words that came in a torrent

of pain and wonder, and some anger.
some vengeful, other words pleading
for your return, which i sometimes
sometimes want.  all these in letters
written and unsent, neat and crisp,
unseen and unread.