The beast rolls around the corner,
its head rearing, taunting and playing
the piano keys like Beethoven on his last hurrah,
proudly smothering my chest with an ache,
an emptiness.

"Only between us," you say, a glance my way,
a reassurance, with a cloying smile. My heart tightens,
"No," I was about to answer, but my thoughts move,
the dictionary in my head turning "no" into a, "Yes, of course".
Turning my truth into a lie,
my heart the severing line.

Giving my frown the definition of a smile.

Beethoven still plays the piano in my mind,
playing his wonderful concertos and sonatas,
this deaf man.
And you can call me friend, your comrade,
your companion, in that less of a jumbled dictionary of yours,
filled with dog-eared pages and highlighted words.

"You matter to me," I say with every ounce of conviction.

You can hear me, but unlike Beethoven you never make a sound.

And I am the broken recorder, testing my conviction.

But as Beethoven is deaf,
in this mental dictionary of mine,
filled with contradiction,
you are the only word
whose definition is friend and foe,
both one and the same.
Too near to the line to be different.

And the strange thing perhaps,
is that it has never changed.

Our love will never be a thing of today or tomorrow, but it will always be there. It exists, and blooms first thing in the morning, but even if you don't find it, it is there. Only, it is asleep, and you wake up, only if it matters.  

Some days, I wake up with a hole in my chest, some days, I wake up with my chest filled with too much, that it hurts beyond words. Do I burst with joy? Burst with ire? Or burst into red dahlias and daffodils?

Because I always hold the watering can with earnest, the grooves of its handle imprinted in my hand, as I water my garden each and every morning. And you don't notice them, the flowers that I make bloom.

You gave me the red dahlias and daffodils, and I always close my eyes at night, thinking one day you will notice.

And I know you won't.

But I go on anyway, with my morning gardening; keeping the soil, cutting what has died, keeping them alive from morning through night, caring  this way always, without self-regard.

This is my way of love.

It hurts inside, you see,
because you never think of me,
the way you think of someone else,
someone who I'll never be.

But don't you dare come closer,
don't come to me this time,
when you lament all about her,
How dare you think it's fine?

Because I've known you longer,
and I still think it's unfair,
how you know little about her,
but forget that I am there.

And yet, I know this isn't love, but
nevertheless, it hurts,
how you inflict pain on me
without actually saying those words.

Where there is thunder that reigns
down the emptiness of your flesh,
in a war hidden and filled with apathy,
to sink behind darkness , once named shame.

There it is, the torn kingdom,
that you've claimed as your body.
The temple which you've loved,
but never cared for in those aeons of silence.

Where you pretended that doing nothing
would solve everything.

And so you weep, for the unfairness of it all,
as you claw at your already mangled flesh,
and press for the warmth of your heart.
Pretend that the rush of blood is a rolling blanket.

You swallow those shards of glass, and emulate the heavens,
and pretend your body with jagged scars
is the place for honourable heroes; pretend your triumph
in this barren, damp land of storms
is the place where thunder always reigns.

A place for heroes who never won, but died in their place.