I missed the knock

on the train’s dirty window as the young poet

frantically tried to catch my attention as I mooched past

in a reluctant poem of my own.

The blonde haired girl with glasses, wide-ever appreciating eyes,

skipping heartbeat,

who sat across the void of space and expanse of tables

in the café, missed the chance for true adoration as she fell head first

into the eyes of the wildly passionate and sincere man

with eyes only for her ignorantly blessed friend,

her feet barely containing glee as they stretched out in search for a spark

of mutual recognition and

who only had eyes for her.

A friend who wandered in from the past,

passed by in a daze, confused by the abundance of people in the building

and was gone, missed the chance for tea and to stir the pot.

The enthusiastic bundle of joy missed her chance to be recognised

by telling her would be boss where he was going wrong in life.

The waitress passing by, once with grace, always with a saucer in hand,

now with trudging

thought of an ant carrying the weight of the world

upon its shoulders and for whom the world has dimmed

the spotlight, missed the chance to throw in the towel.

The smell of a thousand disappointed hearts dying in consumerism overload

refused to be missed, but we ignored the sound of dying souls anyway.

The man who would be miss, the miss who would be missed

when life didn’t go as planned or hoped and she ended up on the list of the missing

and the non-existent.

The sunlight that burned away the dank and desperate mist, as night fell

would be missed as the mist would crawl

and burrow into the bones of ghosts.

All is missed, opportunities and the chance to be missed

Is like fine whispered mist, strand by strand, we become unseen.

 

Ian D. Hall