Being with you

Being with you is like being in a labyrinth with no exit

And at every turn

And every corner

Awaits a monster I don't want to face

Endless allusions

And inexhaustible reminders

Of bogeymen from my childhood days

Every night - an expectation of dread

Fulfilled in myriad creative ways

Every day - painfully predictable

Our conversations a pointless loop

Being with you is like being imprisoned

A life sentence with no plea bargain.

And if my tears were pearls,

I'd have all the oceans' worth of jewels with me.

Even though you're here,

it feels like you died a while ago.

It feels like you're a spirit

Here to soften the blow.

And every day, I wake under the illusion

That we're still together

And as the day matures,

The realization sinks in

That you've actually been gone

For a while now.

I'm like an Alzheimer's patient

Who has to remember their lover's name

Afresh

Every single day.

And in the beginning, my poems were about desire and longing. 

But as the love withered, I went silent.

Until one day, the poetry returned.

Only this time, my poems are about sadness and wondering

Wondering where it all went wrong.

I always knew, our story would end before the world ever knew it had begun. Like the sound of a falling tree in an empty forest - real, yet non-existent, with no one to hear and no one to mourn.

You love me,

But not enough to spare me nightmares.

You want me,

But not enough to stop fantasizing about other women.

My poems were about too much

And yours, if they were to exist,

Would be about too little.

And never the twain shall meet.