STARLESS EYES

A future day

there will come a day when someone will ask me "have you ever been in love?"

I imagine it will be an elderly woman with a sweet wrinkled smile and tea stains across her floral dress, she'd smell of lemon and her tortoise-shelled glasses would make her eyes appear comically wide

and I would laugh and say "no" and pray that her eyes would have the beginnings of cataracts in them so she would not see how my smile was too wide too open too frozen

and she would say "what a shame, don't worry love you will."

I imagine I would nod my head and pray she could not hear the beginnings of a sob echoing off the back of my throat too suddenly too catatonically too urgently

and I would say "I hope so"

because if what we had was love I would have to admit I had lost it over the threat of not being enough - and who wants to tell a love story that should have had a happy ending?

I close my eyes and you are still there too close too far too gone

and I am left to imagine a day when this won't hurt so much