ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

 ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

In the dim light, she pushed the fire door wide,

Saw two shadows entwined, lips meeting in tide.

None were hers, yet she watched, a silent ghost,

Tightening her belt where warmth was needed most.

Out she stepped into the chill, collar raised high,

Beneath a sky of slate, where dreams go to die.

The air was thick with smoke, the streets parched and bare,

She whispered "Good Bye," but no one was there.

Men on the corner, their words a foreign song,

French, perhaps, but she felt she didn’t belong.

Everything shifted, like a puzzle undone,

In this rearranged world, she was the only one.

A cockroach met its end, leaving a stain so vile,

A puddle of pus, a reminder of life’s trial.

In bed, he seemed smaller, a mere shadow of might,

She sang through her sorrow, her tears out of sight.

Her brain was adrift, but her heart beat with fire,

A statistic of pain, a soul to admire.

Someone should study her, see how she feels,

For being here, being real, in a world that conceals.

Oh, how she longed for the kiss that concludes,

The confrontation’s end, where love intrudes.

And oh, how she missed the leap into the abyss,

Feeling the future in a lover’s tender kiss.

Again, the fire door creaked, revealing the scene,

Four lips in union, where hers had never been.

She stood in the threshold, a witness to bliss,

Forever outside, yearning for a kiss.