Looking at you is painful.
Seeing you smile at her
the way you used to smile at me
is an unspeakable torment.
Hearing you laugh at pathetic jokes
and make meaningless small talk
feels like my insides are being squeezed
in an unrelenting vice.

I bite my lower lip
to keep it from trembling.
I want to swallow my tongue;
not because I have so many things
to say to you but because
I have nothing.
There are no words.
There are no words to describe
this pain--this pain of having loved you
in the only way I know how.
Of having lost you.
Only to be here, seated before you
to watch you look at her
the way you used to look at me.
There are no words to convey
the sheer torment of crying inside,
of screaming within my skull,
of burning my heart on a spit
while appearing unaffected.

The smile is frozen on my lips,
but the lights and colors begin
to melt in a confusing mosaic
of my silent tears. "Don't.
Don't let them know how much
you're dying inside," I tell myself.
I'm running after my breath,
trying to get hold of myself.
I close my fists into tight ***** on my lap,
digging half-moons on my palm--
shaking and clammy.
I'm choking through my grin.
And you're just sitting there
without a clue.

Because there are no words.
There is nothing.
There is no you.
There is no me.
You have gone.
Along with all the words that there ever were
and there ever will be.