Answering pain with tenderness

When I touched you

My fingers burnt

With wanting

Beautiful skin

Hid an angry heart

Bruised from loss

Flesh stretched tight

Obscured the anger

That slumbered just waiting

To come awake

Beneath your skin

 

As we lay there

An ocean surrounded us

Tide came in

Then receded

Pulling you so far away

I resented the wave

Which threatened

To reawaken all my loss

Gone from me

Emptiness returned

Its taste was bitter

And in the bitterness

My fury grew

As I forgot

How sweet

Was the feel of my skin on your skin

Oh how I wish I could have silenced

Each hurting scream

And made peace with my own wanting

Then

But I was not fully aware

Of the deep imprints of loss

Your leaving awoke

And my screaming reminded you

Only of your own longing

Your own loss

Ocean you became the deluge

That in the end

Flung our souls so far apart

We became two lovers cast adrift

Pulled upon by different tides

Unable to stem the bleeding of love

Now I remember

With sorrow how painful it was

How much we tried

And how impossible

Love was to find

Then

The love we needed

Wasn’t ours to give

Then

But now I will remember

That agony screams

Were really only

A call for love

Cry for love

And I will

Answer

All this pain and past regret

With forgiveness

With tenderness