CLOSING TIME
It started over a simple cup of coffee.
Three creams and extra sugar to cover the harsh taste.
As we sat silently and waited for the bill to come.
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I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding
But to speak would alert him to my inner turmoil.
A choice between life and death, or merely happiness and pain?
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I tried imagining what the last ten years would be like
Without all the assurances that everything would be fine.
And that the future was looking brighter than ever.
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The deception has always been so easy,
the intoxication of secret independence and power.
This day of reckoning – it always had to come.
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The sound of my spoon against porcelain
communicated clearly my desperation for conclusion
And as I ceased to stir, the silence was ready to explode
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Into what could I release the silence to, I wondered
Sadly, oddly amused on this Valentine’s, of all days.
An alliteration of allusions? A complaisant coup de grace
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The honesty lost, the one selfless gift lies lifeless,
Both enshrouded in guilt and hidden in fraud for
what was once two hearts is now just too much.
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Forever gone, forsaken, split; the result of two souls now adrift.