You have no idea of this pain
No idea of the sense of total loss
No idea how it feels to be losing your mind
Now I do. Yes, and I hurt.
My heart still glows with burning embers
With love
But yours? They have died. Love has disappeared …
… down icy cold corridors
And lost. Yes, I am lost at being so alone now.
For all these years. Years filled with your love?
I have had you as my constant, my rock, my cornerstone
Even when we were apart.
You were my only need.
And now I have nothing … zero.
No certainty, no love, no contact, no loving touch
To be so bleakly alone is a shock
I feel marooned, cast adrift on a stormy sea …
Before? Well I had you there beside me.
Now? … well no more. This boat fights its way through a tempest alone …
… only me to guide it. Maybe drown with it
And that wouldn’t be so bad would it?
Drown in abandonment?
Die with your name on my lips.
“I love you.” uttered with my last waterfilled gasps
Your lovely face with one last bittersweet smile.
Yes, I feel shipwrecked on some island
Sharing a rocky beach with blade sharp memories of you
But empty memories, for they have no resonance with me or with you it seems
One-way memories as the others become garbage.
Not shared anymore.
How could you forget? How could I become … forgotten, a nothing, a cypher?
And how could you do this? You promised never ending love.
How could our great love die in a week?
And I sit here wondering how, befuddled, confused
Blindsided, bereft, not understanding …
… alone.
But the embers of my love still burn bright for you …
… yours? Yes, they have died in an instant
A stiletto in my back, a noose around my neck.
A nail in my coffin.
A flatline.
I sedate myself, gin, cigarettes and Valium
And do they reduce the pain? Maybe … I shrug
A steady thrumming of pain still but it is eased for a brief while.
To be replaced by numbness and sweet memories?
Yes. I still sleep beside you in my dreams
I still feel every contour of that lover I know so well,
… but mine no longer.
I still feel your sweet body …
… but only as another enters you
Each stroke is a broken prayer
Every sigh of passion is a tombstone to me
And his final thrusts become my torment. My descent into hell.
As I watch with revulsion as he takes you from me
Destroy my love.
Do you know what you do?
Do you relish my pain? Do you even care?
But my embers still burn brightly.
My heart still beats for you.
© 2018 Stan M Rogers. All rights reserved.
Stan M Rogers 