A Six Pack of Sonnets

I might believe these words you’ve sent to me
Except that what I read are awful lies.
I doubt you know my depths of misery.
You’d know if you could look behind my eyes.
My life’s become a chain of lonely sighs
That echo hollowly within my head.
I miss your soft hellos and warm goodbyes,
I miss you lying next to me in bed.
And since you’ve left the only words I’ve said
Have lost themselves to waiting emptiness.
I haven’t slept or taken daily bread
Since losing you has left me in distress.
Believe me when I say my love was true.
I only wished to hear the same from you.

My losing you has crippled self esteem.
Regrets have left me pondering alone
Where once we lay conjoined as in a dream
Transcendant - we were more than flesh and bone.
I want these words, at last, to make it shown
That nothing will compare to what you meant.
I’ll sing of you with all the skill I’ve known.
I’ll sing until I’ve soothed my discontent.
Perhaps one day you’ll ask me to repent
This sin of song but I cannot forgive
The fact that I’ve endured abandonment.
What’s worse than what I’ve lost I have to live
Without the strength I had before we met.
You’ve weakened me and I cannot forget.

Perhaps I wanted nothing more than words
To learn by rote, repeat and pass the time;
A litany to show the milling herds
Of hoi polloi the meaning of sublime.
I need to write this down and make it rhyme,
To lay it out and have my thoughts unfold.
I don’t recall committing any crime
(Unless you count the contraband I sold).
I wasn’t ever base or overbold.
Incapable of holding any grudge
I treasured you more jealously than gold
And hoped you wouldn’t ever have to judge
If I was worth the time you set aside.
You said I was but now I know you lied.

I’d sometimes play on words that made no sense
And try, at once, to make them seem profound
And lunatic. Not knowing you were tense,
Unused to having anyone around
Who’d dive on down so pulse’s drums would pound
Their intimacy music in your ear.
And you were used to faking pleasure sounds
Without a meaning more than too much beer
And circumstance. If you detected fear
(I scared myself) I hoped to have it licked
By calling up the nerve to make it clear
That you, of all, were who I would have picked
To share the inner reaches of my mind,
To dive in deep. Alas, I’m left behind.

I don’t know what I did to make you leave.
You once complained I loved you from afar,
While other times you couldn’t quite believe
That love would let you stripe my back with scars
Administered in bliss. Those searing stars
Of ardour on my skin from fingernails
Grown long and sharp to show in local bars.
Or was it all my pretty spoken tales
Of gallantry and quests for Holy Grails
That made you think, perhaps, I was a fool
For wasting time on one whose face went pale
When she admitted dropping out of school.
You knew enough to spout hypocrisy
And taught me more than university.

For instance, I have learned that any pain
Will ease when given time enough to heal.
I’ve learned to sing without our old refrain
And judgements made are subject to appeal.
Another woman’s offered me a deal;
She’ll take my hand and walk with me a while
If I consent to tell her how I feel.
It’s easier than holding back the bile.
I’ve never seen a brighter, truer smile
Than what she shows me every time we meet.
I’ve found a girl who’ll go the extra mile
To share herself and make my life complete.
I’ve learned that hearts can mend when they’ve been torn
And burning love be, phoenix like, reborn.