Her death was like quicksand
I tried to escape the grief
I tried to run, swim, crawl
but, like spectral arms,
I was dragged back beyond the precipice
down into the gravely depths
down to my despair.

I sought after her and found crumbs
but the trail of bread yielded only hunger,
hunger for perhaps her scent
perhaps echoes of her voice as she fades
into the distance
perhaps her reflection trapped in a mirror
any sign that she were still living
but the world had closed her chapter
and my hunger became a fasting...
I once hoped for love everlasting,
but my truth will never be love ever-after.

Just when I thought hope was forgotten,
I found an envelope with her name scrawled upon it.
Her crest engraved the wax of the seal.
The torment of her abandonment sunk into me once more,
and the quicksand trickled all around.
How dare I imagine her again?
How dare I open this audacious package.
Indeed,
I pry open the letter with haste,
mouth dry, tongue limp like dry wood,
eyes bulging,
my nourishment is within this envelope, of course!

Indeed,
within it, I find cobwebs and shame.
A picture of her I had never seen.
Her arm wrapped around the trusted embrace of a suitor
and I cannot penetrate this world she has found,
I do not belong.

I burn the picture...
With each spark of the fading image,
somehow I am freed
and the chains she bound to my soul are now vines
I reside in a fortress, barren, but safe.
Unassailable.
Cold.
"Darling?" I hear.
My wife peeks down from the stairs,
"Supper is ready..."
Of course.
Of course a mistress can never be real.
She will ever be a phantom.
And phantoms can never say farewell.
They were never there.