Astonished eyes
Gushing mouths
They say, “You’re so beautiful.”
Compliments deserve courtesy
“Thank you.”
Warm smile.
Their words are bees,
around a flower.
Droning pleasantries.
You are the only one
who needs to say the line,
and you
do not.
What is beauty?
What fear lies beneath refusal
to see it?
What interpretation of honesty
forces you to decline
to observe it?
She wakes to the empty house
searching room by room for traces.
Has he gone?
But surely before such a journey
there would some formal leave taking?
A kiss?
A note?
He slipped away without a word,
and she is left bereft,
wondering why he finds it so easy to leave her,
wondering if she’s been devalued like Greek currency
or Bre-X stock.
No gold to mine after all.
Every couple crafts their own normal.
What’s familiar is what’s all right,
except when it’s not.
Being alone
Being lonely
There will always be too many cracks for
that broken pot to hold water;
it’s fine for bread,
though you
can’t live on bread alone.
Traces of something else,
gold veins of nourishment
are drawn with gestures
too easily forgotten,
so driving away is as simple a turning the key,
not as complicated as farewell.
When he apologized
she thought
This time it will be better
but
“I’m sorry,”
never seems to mean,
“I won’t do it again.”
Words you knew not to say
you said.
Though you prefaced with
‘you’re not going to like this,’
you said them anyway.
You knew those words had venom,
that would poison her heart,
you said them.
And you watch the poison take her
ooze out through tears of
hurt,
doubt,
rejection.
You pretend your purpose was care,
but caring is never deliberately cruel,
caring steps gently amid sensitivity,
caring builds supports to encourage.
In your mouth you have an anti-venom,
but you are silent,
contentedly watching the destruction
of the crushed spirit turning black
from the poison of
your words.
Moving farther from your affection
every moment you wait.
If the broken pieces
didn’t blind him,
cripple him,
impale him,
perhaps he’d be free
to see her pain.
And seeing, to embrace it,
tame it, and more–
for her to show him
what she knows,
that slivers can be pulled,
that slats can be hammered,
that broken pieces can grow into crutches,
that the cracks of fractures
can be patched into a quilt
for a bed of nails.
Oh, he is broken, but
Comfort is where you find it.
There are so many hollow places
that feel the lack of you.
I want you like water,
fill me up,
make me a waterfall,
creating hollow places in my travels.
Long drive
side by side
time to ask the big questions
muse on what was and what will be.
Long drive
side by side
time to hear the answers
pull you and me back into we.
Face to face,
hands in hands,
She’s searching your eyes
for signs adoration,
for joy,
for love
for appreciation.
She is straining her ears to hear you say,
I love you.
You are beautiful.
You make me happy.
I’m so glad you’re mine.
And you say,
Are those black hairs coming out of your nose?
Is that because you’re old?
He walks with a personal cloud
dulling his world, blurring his perceptions.
Walling him in, between tendrils of fog
freezing him in place to avoid falling off the precipice.
Her arms are open with devotion and she calls to him,
but her voice bounces off rocks and mist.
Their mutual affections miss each other
in the haze, but both are sincere and will still be there
when the fog lifts
(or he goes over the cliff).
Shawn L. Bird 