Lenore

 

 

It wasn’t you there lying on that bed

   And not your face that my tears landed on.

It wasn’t you when I kissed your cold head.

   It was your shell—by then, you were long gone.

And all the wailing that you didn’t hear

   And all the anguish that you didn’t see

Meant nothing—all those tears, like flames that sear,

   Were not for you.  No.  They were all for me.

I knew, then, that all I knew was a lie,

   And learned the hard way that our hopes deceive us:

This life is all about saying goodbye

   To people that we love after they leave us

      In a cold room, smothered with sorrow’s weight,

      Where all the living talk of love too late.

 

Copyright 2015 Matthew J Wells