Ago
it’s never …
easy …
letting go
saying goodbye
realizing that your path with someone
no longer saunters to
the same sanctum
because you know then
that you’ll never be whole again -
that, whether they recognize it or not
a measure of your marrow
leaves with them
and only ache
remains …
but YOU -
you absconded more
than just you
(as if that wasn’t enough - smile, sparkling
eyes, lilting voice)
and that ache has
resounded in me ever since then
like a gong with no sound …
and further -
we bore another little soul
and we shared the inescapable reality
of how it hurt HER
how it would keep doing so …
always …
but even that was not
the entire cost
for the people you loved -
those closest to you -
I loved, too …
as my very own
and I lost them ALL
I split my heart
I split my baby girl’s security
I split my family in TWO
and it broke my spirit
for the most inane of reasons
absurdly selfish
unimaginably idiotic …
and I didn’t fight for those things
I held most dear …
oh, heaven, speak!
how precious, poetry
at times like this
because the course of our
two lives now
makes speaking my true heart impossible -
makes saying ANYthing from my soul
inappropriate
uncomfortable
and fiercely foolish …
so I put it here
in verse
where others can only conjecture
or assume it’s contrived
for nostalgia’s sake
where the candle glows
but no one feels
it’s heat …
but …
what is saddest of all -
what makes the nights so interminable
the questions so ambivalent
and the throes so utterly unbearable
is that I have to use this cryptic medium
to express myself …
that I can’t personally tell you
or her
or them
or even my worthless self
how deeply and profoundly
sorry …
I will always be.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, July 2, 2023
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