Poem: the bridge between “you” and “you and i”

the chair you always said you liked

sits, cold and unwarmed

in the darkening april night

as empty as when

it first came into my life

now that you have left it

for the very last time.

it’s funny how eloquent a silence can be

or how you fill my room still

even as you no longer step inside

and even as i no longer remember

whether your tears made a sound

or why my heart had to hide

each time you sobbed a heartfelt plea

to have me hold you in the dying light.

my arms could not move, you see

as full of futile feeling as

there is now emptiness in the night,

even as the moon spoke words of moonlight at

a world that had long ceased to open its eyes.

and every aching word you sought

to thaw away from me, as the winter slowly

melted its ice

would not flow so smoothly down

those jagged crags of rock that formed

the mask i wore outside.

somewhere, in the distant sky

a single whispered "sorry" dies

alight on the cowardly wings

of sorrow and regret, and i

took the bridge between the worlds

of "you" and "you and i"

and walked away long before

that whispered word could reach

your lonely, broken, weather-beaten door.

April 3, 2008