Again, I lay down tired but empty
as though I have walked a great distance
through cold and dismal streets.
I have grown used to sleeping alone.
Love dies so slowly, in little ways.
Separate, you have given me more
than I ever would have allowed you to
beside me.
Loneliness and regret
are harsh but patient teachers
with cold hands and gentle eyes.
With no more you to hide in, the mirror is too clear.
Every flaw is exposed
and I can't bear to look for too long.
But when I force myself, for my own good,
a man with haunted eyes looks back at me
and I wonder what compels him
to chase all the goodness from his life.
How much can be learned from the night?
I turn away from the mirror and go on with my day.
And love dies a little more,
but only the amount that living demands.
Six months after you left,
I took your photo from the shelf,
but not from its frame.
I put it, frame and all, in a box, at the back of a closet.
Today, a little stronger, I used the frame for a new photo
of some more recent, peaceful moment,
and filed yours away,
to be taken up again sometime years from now,
when the person pictured there
is little more than a stranger to me,
someone I once cared about.
The laughter and the pain,
the peace and the mayhem
will be all but forgotten.
And the love . . .
it will be dead by then, I suppose.
The bouquet of flowers you collected
hung on the wall until only last week.
I took them down
knowing that what they had represented
had withered along with them.
In reality, the colors
created in that long-ago springtime
faded the moment you left.
I just refused to notice.
Gathering dust, they hung on the wall,
a museum piece from some happier time.
They were brittle in my hands
and some of the buds crumbled to the floor.
I walked to the trash but,
cursing myself, my heart,
I stopped, unable to throw them away.
I put them in a vase instead
as if they were still alive
knowing it was not healthy,
knowing that I should move on,
take another chance, etcetera, etcetera.
I knew, but I put them in a vase anyway
on the shelf where your photo used to be
to be ignored for just a little while longer.
Love dies so slowly,
so slowly,
in little ways.
Because if it happened all at once,
we would be swallowed up by darkness
and crushed beneath all that tragedy.
Author notes
Choice 3
Written January 1st, 1988
In a list
A contest entry
- You're a heartbreaker by Little Miss Sunny.
475 points, ended June 11, 75 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
What did you think
Comments
1 - 23 of 23
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I'm glad I read this, love does die slowly, and sometimes you stand there watching it crumble before your eyes. It's so frightening, you can't stick your head in the sand and pretend its not happening when the sand is crumbling away.
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I liked the picture at the top of the poem, and I liked your references to a dying /dead bunch of flowers representing what has happened to your love.
This poem is full of emotion, and it seems you learned the hard way not to hold back from love.
Great poem, thanks for entering
Sunny
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Mark,
Safety is such a fraud when it comes to love. I mean, not ever stepping outside the comfort zone of what we know. The safer we remain, the less challenges we have to demonstrate what it is, and how much do we lose in the process? So much more than old pictures and withered flowers, we lose the memories that become part of our being, the lessens that show us the purpose of our lives, the precious the vibrance and joy of the blossom is in its short existence, and what it takes to nurture another. We'd never have anything left for seed.
You have an entire garden!!! And seeds to last a lifetime.
~ Karen
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is it a true story!?
i wish it could be more rhyming
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oh that is so sad.
i send hugs for your pain.
the poem itself is beautifully written,with lots of imagery and emotins.
great job
her loss, not yours
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Nice work Mark,
I took your photo from the shelf,
but not from its frame.
Great lines. -Al -
Thanks, Chealsy. I'm glad you enjoyed this. It was a hard one to write. Good luck judging this. You sure got a lot of entries!
Mark -
This was very sad but true. All we can do is turn our faces from the past and look past the present and move on. Great write and thank you for entering it in my contest.
Chealsy -
wow, im going through this feeling right now and its really hard. i try to move on, but i keep remembering everything and it makes it even harder to forget. i loved the flow and form of this poem. really good. good luck in the contest!
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This is really impressive and very different from your usual narrative verse. There is a soul in this and a resigned grace that captures the forlorn and the “what if?” This is very, very good.
David
“This has been a nonpolitical critique brought to you by the Sweetness & Light Corporation.”
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this was so...amazing. it was, in fact, hauntingly true. i loved it. good luck in the contest.
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That was great and so, so true. We can't expect love to leave us straight away. It fades slowly. Great write xxxx
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This is so beautiful, sad yet very beautiful. Love is something that will take me awhile to ever get close to. When Yancey broke up with me, I knew it was coming, I shielded my heart and in the end it hurt, but it wasn't so painful as I have felt and experienced. I don't get close to any guy, it will really be awhile and many miracles for me to do so. Anyways, I love this write, wonderful, sad and true.
Love You
Sara
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Great write. Sounds as if you've been there. Melancholy and moving piece. Good luck in the contest. Take care and Have fun. Steve
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This was incredible!!! Definately a work of art, wow, I love this so much, great job, thank you so much for entering my contest
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oh wow....i dont know what to say..this is one of the most beautiful pieces i have ever read...it was so sad, but so honest...this is pure heartache and hope and life all rolled up into one and i am so thankful for the pleasure of reading this precious piece of work...it touched my heart very closely, cause i so know how this feels. thank u very much for entering my contest..
kay -
A very sad write, I'll agree with all the others that have said it. Though... I also think of it all as a "letting go" piece... how you've taken her picture and filed it away. Removing that boquet of flowers... Yes.. It's more of a letting go of love lost type of poem, still sad though, As most poems of lost love are. You've done a great job expressing yourself on this write, as you've always done, Mark. I know this is an older write from you, but one I'm glad I have come across. Thanks for sharing your heart with us here
~Aimee
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Janet,
I know what you mean. It would be so nice if we never had to learn some lessons at all. But pain is intrinsic to life. There's just no avoiding it. Nobody goes through this life unscathed. And I think what Kahlil Gibran said in The Prophet is true - "The deeper sorrow carves into your soul, the more joy it can contain."
Still, all the philosophy in the world never makes the loss of a love easy, and God help us if it did, I suppose. Abundance of emotion is preferable to absence of it.
Of course, I'm sorry to hear you related to this so much. Then again, all your experiences made you who you are today, and that's something pretty damn incredible from what I've read here, and from the beautiful and generous spirit you show so effortlessly in your comments to me and to others. You are your own happy ending.
See you next time, my friend
Mark -
Hi RockyRider,
Nice to meet you. Glad you like it. Thanks for stopping by.
Hi Symitar,
That's an incredibly healthy attitude and a unique perspective - that the good memories overshadowing the bad are a gift to help us heal. I never looked at it that way. Then again, sometimes it's good to force ourselves to remember the bad lest we overromanticize someone who really let us down in a lot of ways. Thanks for stopping by.
Destiny,
I read Never Again Land. (Not Never Ever Land Silly! lol) Awesome. Loved it. You're right - it was a lot like this one. Kinda spooky, actually. Sorry to bring back painful memories. I'll post a funny story for you right now to cheer you up. Look for "Things Could Always Be Worse."
See ya in the funny papers!
Mark
Edited on Oct 25, 10:29 p.m. because ''. -
Wow, this is so sad, all too familar I'm afraid. I guess every heart breaks at least once. I wrote a poem similar to this, I think it's called 'Never Ever Land' I think that's it. LoL. I love the visuals in this piece the photo frame, that touches me personally, the dried flowers, the box in the back of the closet. Very good... very tender, very heart wrenching. I love this. I have been trying to steer clear of angst type poems, mostly because I am hurt when I read them, and I won't lie, this one brought some tears too, but this one was very good.
~Destiny~
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A very honest and forthright piece, detailing the extent of pain and sorrow we go throughendure the death of a relationship. Oh, they don't always die right away, as you so aptly describe here, but sometimes it takes us more time than we would like to admit to get over someone. I still have dreams about my ex, but I don't want him back, but those memories come back to haunt me sometimes. Its so easy to forget the bad and hang on to the good. But I think that is something given to us, a gift to help us heal. I agree, we would be crushed by the force of the whole thing. Nicely done.
~ becky -
Mark~~
This is outstanding~~~painfully, hauntingly, beautifully sad. I can SO relate to this. I happened to read "Computer-Induced Mania" before I read this, so I'm getting the "12-hanky special" in the wrong order! This poem is absoulutely brilliant! I love the way you related piece by piece the painful process of getting over a lost love, wanting to hold on, yet needing to let go....just a little at a time lest it be too much to bear. My favorite lines~~~
"Love dies slowly, so slowly,
In little ways.
Because if it happened all at once,
we would be swallowed up by darkness
and crushed by all that tragedy."
So VERY true, but sometimes there just isn't the option~~~sometimes it just gets ripped right out of your soul with a great force that leaves your heart no choice but to bleed. I have experienced both and don't know which is worse, the sledgehammer to the gut pain or the slow, long, drawn-out pain. It does serve to inspire some pretty intense and awesome poetry, but I think I'd just as soon not write quite as well and be spared the misery! As always, I am in absolute awe reading your words, you write from the soul and that's where this is felt. Thank you for sharing, it is simply amazing! Peace and many blessings to you!
Love and Hugs,
~Janet~
Edited on Oct 24, 2:46 because ''. -
absolutely stunning, this piece moved me greatly and i look very forward to reading more of your work.
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