The Smallest Reminder

I’m starting to think it’s beyond me completely

to get past what went wrong

The sight sends me scurrying in every direction,

unable to face down the impending failure

Better to keep sticking my head in the sand,

clinging so tightly to desperate fantasy

than to meet with the knowing that nothing’s the same

I’ve held on so long to the embers of failure

that my hands are nothing but ash and bone,

and yet I can’t seem to let it all go

Instead I force it inside me so deeply,

left there to burn me when I come across

the smallest reminder of you