The more he speaks
the more I see
If he were me
There would no longer be
Even remnants of this “We”…

“Life is too short…”
he argues.
Thinks to sever
another connection
he deems harms
his…


I silently wonder
Am I next?
as he whittles away
more of the ME from me…

Either way, it’s not fair
how much of me lies there
in the discard pile
Shackled

I’m so tired of apologizing
for being myself

I DO think it’s true
(though regret muttering the words)
that the truest me
must be difficult for him to like
He preferred me
malleable

Is it so surprising
I dread the presence
of one who crushes my ME?

Yet still, it is I…
Swallowing so many words
that should reveal my truths
(they are not worth the conciliatory cost!)

I’m so tired of…

Silent
Aching
Gasping
Grasping
Grappling
Pressing heart & chest & lungs
Clenching in the guts
Every muscle weakened by the emptiness
Every nerve echoing the pain,
every rib drawn close in weeping,
cacophony of an arhythmic heart,
spasms of asphyxiating lungs
As the heart & soul weep bitter tears
Palpitations of The Missing…
Yet, the face remains impassive,
Secret of the heart must remain
silent
though the heart weeps

How do you tell someone close
You don’t love them anymore?
How do you let them know
All the years that have gone before
Are too filled with hurtful words
Piercing you to your core
That several months of “trying”
could never even the score

How do you say after 20 plus years
What a weight their presence brings?
How do you trust them with your fears
when their presence a heaviness brings?

How do you break the bonds that bind
When they’ve broken the truest you?

Despair is the only fate I find…
To answer these questions, I haven’t a clue.

When you broke into the home of me
I said “I love you” and gave you the key
Later you thought to return it
as shards were cutting our feet
Return?! You did not see
It secured to your heart as roots of a tree.

Though now our feet have traversed
through many miles & spaces & lives
& our hearts have grown, are submersed
in a couple or four loves (or five?)
Those wounds now healed, with callouses grown. . .
Yet I think you still own the key to my home.

Those shards of glass knives
That sliced us apart
I swept into a furnace
Aflame in my heart
Once molten I shaped them
into fanciful art
Now hung on the walls
(mingling sweet with the ****)
of spaces held secret,
where memories restart.

Is there a chance
You’d ever unearth that key?
Do you even desire
To wander the halls of me?
I wish you would find it
Re-enter this door
Make me your home
and more. . .

Would you run through your night
Lock us inside
Together we’d hide
In the rooms of our minds
Together we’d hang
New art we would form
Together we’d wake
To a fresh beautiful morn.

Come, a new key we’ll cut
Find fantasies fresh
Build a shared house
for hearts long enmeshed.

None of it really matters
long enough
to tear my heart away…
I am
Always returning to you

All it takes is a thought,
A sense  of you
hearing you, seeing you…
everything evaporates
and you remain
i always come back to you

Will you come back to me?

I miss you
I love you
  
I could choose to converse
with various friends & acquaintances...
But it’s not them I crave to better know.
  
I’m so touched out!
children grabbing grasping,
pushing, pulling, dog-piling my body,
Unaware of where their bodies end
and mine begins...
Yet I crave that single touch
whose lightest brush
would send electric awareness
fluttering through my every nerve...
that single touch,
now farther than mere miles away.
  
My ears are worn with overlapping chatter
in competition for my listening attention
sounds bombard with needs... yet
that single voice that sings throughout my dreams
Is so long silent…deceased to me, I fear.
  
Friends and family repeatedly profess
Their deep true love for me.
(yes, those children hold my love!)
Yet, it is you to whom my heart returns
It is YOU from whom I seek heart-stopping reminders:
“I DO love you”
  
It's you I need
It’s you
always you