“So, how are you?”
I place the question without undertone.
But on my face, by now the answer’s known.
“Okay, how should it be with you?”
“What shall we eat?”
Uneasy dialogue at evening’s meal.
But we are choking on the same old spiel
that we have yet to speak out loud.
“You’re looking pale.”
I say that only out of sympathy
Expression without love means naught to me;
It only hurts more in the end.
We lie awake:
like two countries under just one roof.
I can move, and he flinches.
So I lie in the trenches.
You’re apart by mere inches –
when one can’t love anymore.
They so condemn –
the pretty photos in the picture frames.
And when we thoughtlessly use those pet names,
suddenly, we are exposed.
You seek advice
And I will act like I do know you.
But then my answer merely shows to you
that I’m not really int’rested.
You touch my skin
and all this pain knocks on my door right then,
because I can’t explain to me again
just why I don’t want that at all.
We lie awake:
like two countries under just one roof.
I can move, and he flinches.
So I lie in the trenches.
You’re apart by mere inches –
when one can’t love anymore.