A woman growing older needs her husbands unattainable attention.

While I wasn’t looking.......

I want to say "I love you"

with a full heart,

not as part of daily conversation.

I don’t like the fact that,

I must assume you really mean it.

I don’t like to feel the emptiness

that accompanies assumption.

I long for the moments that,

I see love for me, in your eyes.

I know it’s there,

when the blue in your eyes

sparkles like a multi-faceted sapphire

dancing in the moonbeams.

From you, radiates a warm, all consuming tenderness and light,

making me feel safe, loved, wanted....

But, those moments are fewer and fewer.

Only being expressed in a hurried flurry

of motions and actions,

fanning the embers that lay in wait.

Only to flee minutes later.

The embers then fade,

and the darkness of emptiness fills me again.

I long for the days,

when you couldn’t get enough of me,

couldn’t wait to see me

and worried when I was late.

Now, you leave messages,

with a flat tone of voice,

asking "where the hell are you".

I know that you love me,

you wouldn’t be here

if you didn’t.

But, as we grow older, the need

to feel wanted and needed

grows as well.

I feel like less than a woman

without your affection.

That pain strikes deep.

You have grown older, gracefully

like fine wine,

As I reap the ravages of Father Time.

As our oldest child preps

to leave our little nest,

I worry that my ship has already came in

and sailed, while I wasn’t looking....

Sandra Ferrara Gentry2007