The world is wide and the wind is wild

and I’ll live forever.

So be wary, dear

because I’ll be watching you.

Long after you flip this page for

others more agreeable and have

long forgotten my name and these words

I’ll be very much watching

like a painting with peephole eyes

I am peering off the page

while you’re so alone, convinced

nothing but inanimate ink

though I am seeping in your eyes lids

and coursing through you like a laughing gas.

Do be deceived in private,

believe I’ve been so simply closed and yet

I’m here crouched in your mind

and cloaked swimmingly in your soul –

perusing your most intimate memories

and disturbing fantasies –

my great cleverness pervades

all of your petty borders, dissolves

all of your paper barriers.

So look away all you will

play nice music to ease your mind

or chat mundanely with a confidant

still I’ll be with you like a fly on your inside wall

but yet a looker at your window

watching, seeing you feel me there:

while you stare into your mirror vanity

while you collect a fresh towel from the linen closet

while you’re perched solemnly on your porch

during a distant lightning storm to ponder love;

while you do whatever you do, my love

I’ll be Mona-Lisa smiling all the while.

You will die

with no mysteries resolved

and I will live on.

I will live on

and I’ll be watching.