In No-Man's Land

Nights I’ve turned you into a genie-ghost of sorts: Using the same brain synapses that enabled me To fly fearlessly above the landscape of my dreams, I can summon up your presence before me Whenever I wish, so you can appease me- God of all the hidden things that you now are for me: Grant my wish by proving, you never really went away. Twinges of conscience still assail me, mornings- What if everyone were to realize how I am using your memory; Selfishly detaining you here from the other things You ought no doubt to be doing; whatever things One might expect to do wherever it is you now are dwelling, In the daylight, when I am busy inside the world’s body. It’s true you would have set your own self on fire, Just to warm me the last hour, at the end of time. You had already both loved and lost the one thing Most dear to you, once before; taken for no reason And just far enough away, to be denied you. Being orphaned and already lonely at such young age, it must Have hurt much more than anything else; Done merely to wound you, repay you for perceived sins- A belated miscarriage of sorts, certainly having nothing to do With justice. Even our enemies do not know us well enough To cremate us without a single match ever being lit. In last nights dream, a disembodied voice even chanted That somebody had died- but I ran quickly from The doom-sayers implication: Now that everything is arranged to my liking, Why should I change it to let the truth find purchase? Is it that I loved you too much, but still not enough To let you go free, keeping you locked inside no-man’s land; My own hungry ghost trapped inside the genies lamp?