STRIKEN

STRIKEN 

Love has been stricken from my vocabulary;

Immunity serves as a substitute.

Each word I speak is a shield,

Protecting a heart too tender to bleed again.

Once, your laughter was my morning sun,

Your touch, the gentle rain on parched earth.

We danced in the kitchen, barefoot and free,

Our love a melody only we could hear.

But shadows crept in, whispers of doubt,

Your eyes, once warm, turned to ice.

Promises shattered like glass on the floor,

And I was left to pick up the pieces alone.

Your departure was a storm, fierce and sudden,

Leaving me drenched in tears and despair.

The door slammed shut, echoing in my soul,

A final note in our unfinished symphony.

Now, I stand at the crossroads of memory and reality,

Unable to force-feed you truths too painful to swallow—

Rephrased, I cannot make you see

What cuts too deep to face.

Believe me, I’d tear down these walls,

If only your sensitivity would return,

Its sabbatical concluding sooner rather than later,

But time moves on, indifferent to my pleas.

This one is out of my hands,

A thread I cannot pull, a tide I cannot turn.

If it were up to me,

I’d choose the woman I fell in love with—

A woman who didn’t have it in her

To walk out on my tears and slam the door.

The one who saw my breaking as sacred,

Not a burden to discard.

But choices are not ours to make in matters of the heart,

And so I stand, immune,