Love Poem: Life's Greatest Regret
James Inman Avatar
Written by: James Inman

Life's Greatest Regret

I watch the sun fall from the sky tumbling soundlessly, the horrid quiet deafening. As I see it touch the horizon, the world burns and clouds, like kindling, burst into flames set afire, until their brilliant hues burn to cinder leaving the night as dark as the frozen embers that remain, dead weight, filling my breast. Yet, the heaviness that’s left is only an illusion for I am as empty as the
void
between
the
stars. The eyes that once beheld the colors of life and the beauty of your smile, now see only grey, the nothing that has become me.
My unhearing ears long for the sound of your dulcet lullabies to soothe my fears and I watch you as your sweet lips move but no melody ensues, no gentle bird songs, no whispered secrets,
only silence.
My fingertips numb to the touch of you, never more to caress your shoulder, to stroke your hair, your neck, the soft smooth skin of your long slender fingers. The desire to feel your hand held in mine
is but a fool’s unfulfilled fantasy. My body remembers the moments that you held me in the sweetness of your caring embrace. Remembers, remembers, now only vagueness in this fog filled mind. How I wish to press my lips against the silky softness of yours, to feel my cheek against your satin skin. To hear the words I love you breathed like a soft caress through your gentle smile. I watch you talk and laugh from across the room, the occasional glance thrown in my direction. I wonder what you are thinking. You made it quite clear how you see me, what you feel about me. Where there was once hope, a tiny grain, like sugar, has dissolved in the torment of ocean that is my tumultuous emotion leaving nothing, not even a hint of the sweetness that I have for so long felt for you. I lie down in drowsy slumber praying that this misery end in hope that my eyes remain closed for eternity, but other plans have been laid out for me; as again, the sun peeks through the shade of my bedroom window slowly stealing, one by one, each shadow from the corners of the room. No sleep comes, undesired penitence for my blasphemy? If I died tonight, would you shed a tear, would you, like I, share in my life’s greatest regret, never having kissed you, or would I be but a nameless face to you in a year?
11/11/2017 Choose A Topic - Poetry Contest HEARTBREAK AND LOSS