No–she never loved me truly: love is love forevermore.”–Tennyson, “Locksley Hall”
If each man kills
the thing he loves
then you are what is left
after the scalpel
scraped my heart.
A void the minutes make
whenever they laugh.
You are the note
I forgot to send today.
the lost fragrance
of some other time.
The nameless candle I burn
to cleanse a room.
The wax of despair
in a hearth of autumn.
You are the faith and dream
that did not work.
The eyes that shift
forever in mistrust.
You are the uncertainty
of our every meeting.
The reminder of what was
and the death of singing.
In you there is no tomorrow
only clouds and ‘could haves’.
You have built an altar
of self-inflicted rites.
Fled now my soul selects
its own society.
And you are just the end
of my new beginning, love.