By Athena Stairs, October 13, 2026
And if I could just tell you
What hides within my heart
How every night’s a parody
As I try to not fall apart
Wrapped within your memories
Of all the years like charity
That reach into my clarity
And tear it all assunder
Would they say that love is torment?
Do I fall to my own detriment?
When an open hand once reaching
Disappears before the start
As I walk among the nightmares
Aware somewhere a wrong turn
But it’s more a once found door
Just slammed into a willing heart
And I wouldn’t blame you one bit
Though inside I’ll scream at the waste of it
Confused and again cast adrift
Looking tear-struck in the dark
From day to day I go about
All the toil they say that life’s about
As I gasp and lurch in fever dreams
Every day without you here with me
Would they say that love’s addiction?
Or that actually its affliction?
When without it our conviction
Has no purpose to form art
And I crave to tell you such things
Abstract and maybe deranged
For some reason thinking that
You’d understand just what I mean
Where the truths collide with fantasy
And souls believe with intensity
Would I rather have this brevity
Than be held with your arms?
And I guess that’s what were left with
Behind silence of words’ intentions
In the emptyness surrounding
When two halves are not as one
I have seen in you the difference
No holding back for consequence
Even though we both have paid the price
In a coin that can’t be bought
And I know that its been difficult
Caught again in what’s been typical
For us both to just believe again
Even when assured a sure win
So my eyes look to the heavens
Then back to earth’s dimensions
And I ponder the deeper mysteries
Growing bored with same old patternings
In the past when I’d capitulate
To breaking free to clear my plate
Should I always self eviscerate?
Leave behind what I still remonstrate?
Its the effort that keeps wearing down
It’s hard to smile when need to frown
When what’s been found gets lost again
And it feels like I’ve lost my dearest friend
In this absence like perpetuum
A sword, a shield, a loaded gun
The rites and rituals magnified
Still dazzle without compromise
And I wouldn’t condemn effort
Even of the slightest gesture
For I want our hope to grow again
For love to light its fire and grin
While I lie awake in reveries
Agrieved by what was meant to be
Is detachment what I must embrace
To keep surviving bitter ends?
—
(36, 72, both = 9)
