A Single Tear

So your love turned.
Odd
when emotions spoil.
Left out on a counter was it?
And I thought I had put it away.
While our commitment
lay dying,
your indifference,
in perfect imitation of
your aloofness,
had me fooled.
At last,
drawn into
resentment it was,
at least,
something,
instead of
nothing.
When you’re holding onto
that,
you know you’re
drowning.

My final crime –
one of being there
instead of someplace,
(anyplace) else
was met, you know, by
my final act
of love –
to be someplace
(anyplace) else
for you,
a surrender
met with your
deadest eyes,
when a simple word
of understanding
would have made
a difference. Even
a single tear
spared for me.
Would it have been
harder for you,
to kill us
with kindness?

.

Hi Rainey,

Your poem asks for honesty. Are love and honesty compatable? It seems like a reasonable request, but either or both may be an illusion. It doesn’t make the emptiness or the pain go away. A lot of sadness in this poem.

Interesting take, JT. My thinking would be that honesty is a necessary component of love, at least real love.

But I wouldn’t say the poem is asking for honesty so much as perhaps empathy. An acknowledgment of the pain. Maybe even just common courtesy. Or at least the idea that it matters. We treat total strangers better than people we have shared love with or even, in this case, a marriage. As you may suspect, the poem was drawn on life experience. It was a long time ago.

I don’t know what made me think of it recently.

But all I ever wanted was this, which I never received:

Jezebel

To think of my task is chilling.
To know I was carefully building
the mask I was wearing for two years,
swearing I’d tear it off.
I’ve sat in the dark explaining
to myself that I’m straining
too hard for feelings
I ought to find easily.
Called myself Jezebel.
I don’t believe.

Before I say that the vows we made
weigh like a stone in my heart.
Family is family, don’t let this tear us apart.

You lie there, an innocent baby.
I feel like the thief who is raiding
your home, entering and breaking and taking
in every room.
I know your feelings are tender
and that inside you the embers
still glow. But I’m a shadow,
I’m only a bed of blackened coal.
Call myself Jezebel
for wanting to leave.

I’m not saying I’m replacing love
for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I’m just saying we’ve mistaken one
for thousands of words.
And for that mistake, I’ve caused you such pain
that I damn that word.

I’ve no more ways to hide
that I’m a desolate and empty,
hollow place inside.

I’m not saying I’m replacing love
for some other word
to describe the sacred tie that bound me to you.
I’m not saying love’s a plaything.
No, it’s a powerful word,
inspired by strong desire to bind myself to you.
How I wish that we never had tried to be
man and his wife,
to weave our lives
into a blindfold over both our eyes.

-10000 Maniacs

I agree that genuine love is complete honesty. It is what makes love both possible and binding. But genuine empathy requires the same selfless honesty, doesn’t it? I understood the request for empathy, but the honesty was paramount in my estimation. In such a relationship, we have to be dishonest with ourselves and then and only then, our partner. It becomes a hall of mirrors, doesn’t it, and much too painful for anything but a quick glance lest we see ourselves…

There is being in love, and then there is the idea of being in love with love. We all seem to have trouble with that…

After all that, it was still a poem of emotion. Good stuff.

Hey Rainey, sentiment aside, this one is too randomly choppy for my taste. It just falls down the page.

Love…? Honesty…? C’mon guys.

Maybe it falls down a page, but it swept me up inside it… so who really cares about structure when it is a gift of the heart. I loved it.

2 cents:

May I add that true honesty in love is rare and an illusion at that. We may get glimpses of it in the day-to-day relationship fog, but being inside someone else’s brain as though you own it is an impossible task. Glimpses of truth and honesty are all we are capable of sharing with each other. If we shared our ultimate truths, most of the time we could run the risk of hurting and/or losing the one we love.

It’s like a man and a woman sharing an email address: BobJaneen@yahoo.com wreaks of fear to me. You need to be somewhat dishonest in certain cases to just get by. Yea, I’ve gotten cynical - so sue me.

i.e. I may think about my husband as such - "that dipshit never f*cking recycles" but I would rather take 20 to pick the sticky plastic out of the trash than be “honest” and annihilate dinner. No one likes the sound of it, but “no, honey… you don’t look too fat in that bathing suit” can be an exaggeration of the truth (aka) a lie. Even the nuance of saying “too” could ruin Tuesday. Ah, so much for poetry and honesty. Getting by is what most relationships are built on after years of being into it. If you disagree with me, c’mon around and let’s debate it after 15-20 yrs or so…

I rest my case. Such a romantic SOB I am, eh? As Tab so eloquently put it

. Egggsactly.

I feel a poem coming on. mmmm.

Thanks JT.

Tab, I hear you about the structure. Strange as it might seem, I never feel like I’m really in control of the structure. The structure seems to just sort of present itself as I write. The few times I’ve made a conscious effort to “structure” a poem, I have not been happy with the results. I suppose in this case my emotions were running down the page and so too the words.

Thanks, Bess. I’m glad you liked it. :slight_smile: