Fading and Forgetting

Love is love; but love isn’t enough, is it?
A bullet is the unlikeliest end;
But that can happen sudden; even worse,
Love can very subtly fade out or pretend

To be just nestling there when it is not.
The complexities lessen and pass on
To other more trivial things like bills
And other matters mundane and forlorn.

It is a matter for weeping truly;
Where did all of the good get up and go?
Where is the happily ever after?
Oh, How very much I would like to know!

Was it cast out to make way for life’s woe?
Have younger bodies teased a lost passion?
Was that all love had to be, do and say
In a somewhat daintier fashion?

Love is love, I reckon; but I can tell:
It permeates like frost on life’s window,
And what I could see from it, like before,
May be there still; but I cannot be sure.

If bullets strike my heart I could recall,
In the throes of pain, of what used to be;
And, despite the frost forming on the panes,
I may look beyond and think I truly see.

Perhaps the fading and the forgetting
Are needed to create the shielding frost;
There may not be a need to remember,
For what’s here is clear and was never lost.

Not Yet

I shall perhaps forget
Your eyes, your hands, your touch;
I may not remember
These times so very much;

I shall perhaps forget
How you listen as I talk,
The way the your head bends
As we take our midnight walk;

I shall perhaps forget
The things you said at my lips,
Of how your breath lingered,
Or the press of your hips;

I shall perhaps forget
All the strange, hopeful dreams
I saw under the moon,
Born of its silver beams;

I shall perhaps forget
The way you made me laugh,
Of how your eyes twinkled
And broke sadness in half;

I shall perhaps forget
All that was said and done;
As time ticks its stern heart,
They’ll all fade one by one.

For I can’t bear what comes,
If I fail to forget.
There must be a letting go;
But it’s not time, not yet, not yet.

Strangers Again

The words that’re whispered over three AM talks
Ignoring thunder under rainfall walks
Because you noticed a light in my eyes
Then, when self-esteem was but a word
And the world was a cesspool of lies
Which could be felt and not just heard

Then, when you took me and kissed my lips
And my heart danced in catatonic flips
Then it was that your hair gleamed in the sun
As it fell on my chest, I held it tight
I’d no hope even then that you were one
To last through the day unto the lost night

I recall not one word from yesterday
For none matter now, words aren’t meant to stay
The feel of your hair is gone with that hour
And you have found another pair of eyes
To taste, to praise, to dive in and devour
You become a ninja master of disguise.

I smile and move on to the next three AM talk
Maybe this time I’ll learn and won’t do the walk
The thunder would groan and rumble with might
I’ll notice it keen through the still warm rain
And when I pass you via a quiet night
It will be quite like we were strangers again.