Ten years since
you cut me loose
like so much dead weight,
shut tight thick metal door
to hurting heart.

It is a mystery to me
that I should love you still
and pray for only good for you
even as I flounder in waters
deep and dark.

Your life rises always
to peaks where others
acknowledge your success,
acclaim your honor, embrace,
encircle, enfold.

Cast to frightening depths,
I strive still to shed these chains,
swim toward hope’s ray yet am
to others but a sunken thing,
over and done.

Every day I drown.
Every night I dream
of lights I’ve loved pulling
fast away, barring me forever
from surface life.

Were I to grab hold
of a little lie, dismiss you
in issue of memory, might I
soar again, or even walk,
into new life?

Pretense fails. I cannot
substitute indifference for what
was and is. My breath almost gone,
I see you through murky waters
staring down.

And I am haunted by
your hollow eyes, wanting
desperately to pull you back, allowing
love’s last bubbles to rise
to meet you.