You (poem)

Ah! Hello, you!
Don’t I know you?
You’re the phone that never rings.
You’re the “drip-drip-drip” of faucet
And a bird that seldom sings.

You’re the judging looks of strangers
And a laugh behind my back,
And the room that never changes,
You’re the hallway still and black.

You’re the dust on flower vases
And the wind through haunted places
And the eyes that hurt to see
And the soul too tired to be.

Oh, I know you,
Don’t I know you!
Hoped I ever to be free?
Of the silence that surrounds me
And the emptiness the binds me
Ever tied by fate are we
Lovers joined, adrift at sea.