For Tom Poem by Katrina Harms

Widely I cast my net
seeking that cache of closeness
in safer shoals, a glimmer in the depths
You smiled into my heart and
I drank your words like holy wine-

Those stagnant, transient friendships
I'd endured for so long
Inconsequential they seem now,
beside yours-

There was a seagull who perished from
Starvation, its stomach waste-laden
So fares the heart when left to scavenge
on polluted ground.

I do not eat, I do not sleep
I doubt my senses and instincts.
Once pleasant routines feel tedious,
what remains but the declaration
of my heartsickness?
I was once an ardent hunter
Content, capricious in my roaming.
But I sense myself now hunted,
within familiar forests, lost.