What chance have we to know each other no matter how intimate we are when we do not take the time to know ourselves, intimately.

What cannot be found alone certainly cannot be discovered together.

The journey of two must begin with one thus though we travel together we remain in many ways be apart.

I cannot speak for you yet I can say that I do not yet know me.

I don't know how to love you
Yet love beats within my heart.

I cannot stay with you
Yet I cannot leave

Why do you not ask me to
Speaks volumes that you do not want to hear.

As E.E. Cummings said
'Yours are the poems I do not write'

Only because I have already spoken every word which begged to be said.

not lost but not found

Fools fall in love
May as well pray to a unicorn
Or look for heaven under a rainbow

Your heart is a fragile vessel
Do not fill it least it burst
And leave you curled upon the kitchen floor
Tears unchecked do nothing to assuage the pain

So sit alone at the beach
In love with yourself
Don't betray it.

Bathed in my own tears
Baptized in love's broken promise
I lay here and remember
Whispered words unsaid

Night's mystery does little to dampen the pain
Memories brought back in an instance in this digital world
Your Instagram smile looks up at me and I recall all that was good
Social media failed to capture the hurt

As I sort through boxes of yesterday
I hear you whisper
But I do not answer
For I do not speak with spectres of plans that went awry
Or the ghosts of love not fully realized.

As I dig deeper more spirits of past disasters join the chorus of the broken hearted
But I do not add my voice to your song.
Yet when I sob I ask:
Do I cry for you?
Do I cry for them that came before you?
Or am I just crying for myself?

Question: Do I place these memories we shared on a mantel to be polished and admired?
Or do I pack them deep into a box not to be discovered until the next train wreck?

Photos and mementos are just snapshots of what might have been,
Who needs that reminder?

Where are you?
Are you sitting on the floor like me? Tears dropping unchecked as you write poor poetry?

No. I picture you sipping tea with a friend. Your laugh, always loud, resounding off the walls and finding it's way into the hearts of everyone who hears it. That is your gift.

This poem is my goodbye. It will be packed away with our other things.
Not forgotten, yet no longer a part of my life.

Goodbye.

Few things touch a poet more than the pure beauty of a smile newly in love,

Or the tremendous pain seen in the tear filled eyes of a heart recently broken.

I can no longer see one without recalling the other,
And in that I find my poetic doom.