Fossils of the human heart – A poem

I shed dead skin in a trail
of diary entries and old poems,
snaking through my life’s path –
the fossils of the human heart,
footprints, preserved in stone.

I watched the slow extinction
of a past girl – each leaf dropping
eventually, though new ones will grow.
I read the things she wrote and
it’s peculiar – how much she isn’t me. 

The air smells fresh outside, it’s been
raining today – a comforting white noise,
but I don’t have you here
to put your head on my shoulder,
and tell me about now things 

and keep me grounded here.
So my mind takes a walk, a hopscotch,
along my stepping stone leaves
or stepping stone petals – my trail
of past things that fell from past me.

There are still pieces of her,
new flowers grow from old roots.
But she was fading, waning, I knew,
when I stopped writing about him
and started writing about you.