Instant Coffee

There's a copy of you

That lives inside my head.

Ersatz-You murmurs like a breeze

Or a ghost

Softly right under the throb of my

Consciousness

During the day, but

At night, Ersatz-You comes out

Of your hiding,

Ferociously stalks like a tigress

The savannah of my mind, hunt

The fauna that creep like slugs and slip

In to the cinema of my pre-slumber

Imagination. My pirated copy of you

Protects me from myself, and

I snuggle into your feline eyes-neck-arms

Every night.

But now,

You're fading. Every night

You're a little paler in my arms,

Your eyebrows are dissolving and

Your cat-smiles come from a great distance.

The flow of Time is eroding a hole in my brain, and

You're slipping through,

Draining from me, and I'm trying to gather

Straws and strawmen into my arms, but

Every night my bed is colder, and soon

The shivering will start.