"Letters to a muse."

I thought I heard you at the door.

Sent a stack of invitations

(withheld – returned – ignored)

But none of them were yours.

Years anaesthetised,

Wading through (don’t say molasses)

Just to find a better metaphor to summarise

The dual-wielding numbness and agony of complacency –

Down the drain

For my own sake,

For heaven’s sake:

Why did you forsake me for

So long?

But not goodbye.

A revenant –

You rose (tinted) again,

A hitch through the stitched fabric of time

Extracting an opal echo from a rich seam –

Now I can hear you at the door –

Where have you been?

Mining phantom ore for art’s mirages

I rose (untinted) glasses in feigned toasts,

Compiled guest lists of ghosts –

Figures from the peripheries of a counterfeit future

(I do and I did and I don’t regret)

Your presence conspicuous in its absence

(Except the dreams I can’t forget)

Still clawing at my door –

An empty floor –

That seam running back through time,

Thread it tight –

Close the potential gap on a summer night,

The right/wrong twisting vines tapping at the window creeping in calling my name curling up on the heart in the space beneath my skin my skull my heart –

My other half:

I’ve been waiting to hear from you.

I’m your favourite dish of delusions and wild-swimming fantasies stirring pools of stagnant weeds.

(Because you never needed an invitation to come back to me).

© Georgina Barley 2025