Afterthought

• Amber Cunneen, Grade 11, All Saints Anglican School
• Poetry
• 2011

Excellence Award in the 'Step Write Up 2011' competition

I’m weak and absurd.
You withdraw from me a smile, a touch, when it passes through your mind. But pass through it does, and I’m left there shivering, aching.
At a loss.
For then I’m left alone, weeks passing, until you once again find my name pleasant on your tongue. When you do I’m a spaniel. I grin and walk with spine erect. It’s plainly, painfully written upon m y face that our mundane encounter replenished my heart, and that funny form of amnesia sets in.
The kind that lets me go on as if I’m always this happy.
But then you move on, as you always do. I receive only a stranger’s smile, a cordial hello. It crushes me to see the hands that once brushed my hair back from my face raised in a friendly wave. You don’t pause for conversation.
I’m forgotten, again and again.