I cut myself on love
Held its broken shard to the light
And trembled through the night
In a blaze of fever
I tried to relieve her
But my caresses fell upon deaf limbs
and died there
As she returned them one by one
to their loveless owner
And I carried my burning body
Lamb to the slaughter
sleepless and sighing
across a stranger’s bed
You’ve locked me
Into your embrace again;
I’m Daniel in the lion’s den.
Just as I was a stone’s throw away
From throwing us away
You opened up your arms of love
And begged me to stay
Was it a lifeline
Or a noose with which
To hang my neck?
Are we on board this ship
Or just a sinking wreck?
Because this sinking
Started long ago
I chose to hold on
As the miraculous survivor;
Looked upon our love
And tried to revive her
When all that remained
Were fragments of disarray:
A history of lovers,
Unwilling to leave
And yet unwilling to stay.
Crossing familiar territory
One inch at a time
To feel your pulse throbbing
And the delicate nodules
Of your spine
Still supple
Still as smooth as a peach
Your wingspan opened up
But not out of reach
To fly the distance
We didn’t dare to cover
Instead chased love away
Looking to the affections of another
Lying together now:
Head to head, toe to toe, arm in arm
The storm is over
Time to embrace the calm
Breathe in my love and
Exhale the past
Our vows, they were broken
Before they had chance to last
Accept human fragility
And Time’s loss wasting away
Lay with me again
And we will die to live another day
Hidden under murky waters
Your ashes are scattered
Erasing the sorry glimpses
Of the hope I thought mattered
I dust off a candle
And blow it for you
Not in celebration
But a mourning gloom
For the light has vanished,
Its spark has left.
You talk to me of love
But leave me feeling bereft.
Like lovers passing out
In a romantic trance
We paved the streets of London
In a carefree dance
Unperturbed by the world
We mistakenly offend
Driven forward by a force
With which it cannot contend
Wherein this snow globe
We are each other’s muses
And paint the sky in flakes of feeling
A love infused only with dreaming
Until with my white and frozen
Lips you bade me goodbye
Whilst I continue earnestly now
Loving you awry…
How can we say goodbye
When you still hold
In your hand my heart
The distance does not lie:
We’ve been drifting apart
Yet even as I sleep
Your face in my mind
Hangs like a frame on a wall
Four corners of fiction
That encapsulate my soul
For no longer can we exist
Within margins so fragile
The timing was off and now
This love has become sterile
So look above and find
The writing engraved on the wall:
“A love that is sterile is not one
For which to fall”
The winds of change
Are blowing strong
Pushing old memories
Further along
Past the bay of my mind
Into a new and rising tide
They start to sink
And slowly subside
Just the way my heart did
When they whispered
Our love “had died”
You are a hangover that never leaves
A throbbing pain inside of me
I wake to its presence unceasingly,
The sorrow just never seems to end.
I long for these wounds to heal
But you are preventing them to mend
And yet, I sense that you have not a care.
In your disappointment with me
You denied everything that was there.
But let me plead with you and ask you,
How were we to carry on?
When you have no understanding of
The things you did wrong?
And so I shouldered your blame
Like it was mine to bear,
Until I realised I had no fault
But it was you who was unaware…
Now I have so little to say
Because the pain is just too much;
When everybody is asking
The same questions,
Oh how easily I get fed up!
Each to their own matter and each
Will claim theirs is more important
How eagerly we spill out our words
As if we wished to be rewarded!
To the least of this I plead
A guilty charge
I fought my battle to the bitter end
But it was the end that caught me
Off guard
Now I have poured out all I have to give
I wonder what energy is there
Or motivation to live?
Not even comprehend as much
Hurts more than you’ll ever really know
Whilst I think of them dearly,
I bemoan that it is only my mind that hears me
And not the person I have come to cherish
And so I am sad all along and left wondering
Whether I am wrong to waste my time this way
For although their love is worth it,
Perhaps it is not I that deserves it,
But some other who is more fortunate in this life.
But I cannot accept it whole-heartedly,
There is always a part of me that will never willing let go.
This is the part of me that will hold onto you hardest,
Showing that for you my love is at its vastest
Than it can ever, ever be.
To the mixture of my life;
Without you there is neither colour nor perfection
And I struggle to remember what it feels like to be alive
For when you are with me, you fulfil me
The picture is whole again
Yet you don’t realise that behind these brown eyes,
Ulterior motives doth lie
I never meant to be secretive,
Harbouring mal intent to cut you down
I never wanted you to second-guess me,
With heavy interrogatives furrowing
Deep into your brow
It is just that I love you, truly and deeply
I always hope and wish that somehow you would accept me
Yet that is a step I am unwilling to take;
Its execution would be murderous,
Undoing the brilliant friendship
That we have made
And so the story stays the same;
Loving women is always part of the game,
Losing them is what I most fear,
In solitude I shed a tear,
For it is always them that
I want to draw near
Catherine Lucy Rowland 