Soliloquy

I lie down beside the grave of the promises we made
amid the bedlam that your intention to leave
had created. We have reached the safety that
the years can claim to have built- so unfulfilled
that nothing can declare to be a part of us.

All that I thought had slipped past me in the
old sieve of disjointed and discredited memories
are swelling up in hubris at the mention of your
thoughtlessness. Whence did this shameful
feeling of mesmerising rancour barge its way in?

There is no succour in knowing that the future
might lie somewhere east of where we stand today.
How do you expect me to tell myself that the sun,
trying to be as meek as possible to set amongst
the ebbing tides, has finally claimed us as its own?

Inching past the hope that tomorrow brings
and the gloom that our years together delivers,
who will find the strength to say goodbye?
I wish I had been strong enough to tell you that
I wanted you to stay, and that you looked beautiful

even when the tears had smeared your sleek
mascara down those honey-rimmed eyes.
These moments will last longer than the love
that had consumed us in its spectral fire,
like the promises we had so seldom broken.