Poetry Club 4

The ache of loosing you doesn't hit me until it's eight thirty
And I am under hot water, washing off grime which I
Accumulated in your presence.
This time there was an empty seat and as always
It wasn't filled by her, left empty, and us in comfort.

You haven't been told except in everything I do,
And the words which would inform you will never pass my lips
To echo in the silence of our sanctuary.
This is my safe place, though hers first, and I will not
Blaspheme here by letting out this fear of her.

We wound circles through the dark and followed where lead,
But in the end even warm hands cannot hold me.
I can't do this, so I break from you, like she broke from me.
The next hour, spent tracing circles of my own with my feet and in my mind,
Is spent in an attempt not to think of her.

If you were to meet her, I could not bear it.
Neither to tell you that she is the one to have damaged me, nor
To keep my peace and let it lie.
Maybe you would know by the break in my voice and slope in my shoulders
But more likely I would not even be there.

When I am around her, my mind numbs with fear;
I wonder if this is a flight-or-flight reaction which I never let fully form.
Even in thought, I shy away from her.
When you and I are together, she is both in my thoughts
And the farthest things from them.

Neither elation nor sorrow are mine to have from you,
And I should not take your comfort as if I deserve it.
In every moment with you, I remind myself:
We never should have met.
So the ache of you absence is made more painful still.