Steaming

i am simmering
boiling
roiling in my own juices
this morning
i wake
sleepily, sweetly, sadly
letting go slowly
doesn't hurt any less, you know
it may in fact be
the more painful
choice
but on my lonely way
back-
but i am finding pieces
of my heart along
the path,
acknowledging what must be mended
places that bleed still,
fleeting glimpses
of the kind of compassion
that might transform us both,
once again,
into something resembling
friends.

remember?
please remember,
how i've adored you-
caresses carrying love's buoyant weight,
nights of laughter and mornings steeped
in passion's wake-
don't forget.
don't forget, amor mio.

and even back
before that still
delighting in you
without possession or pause,
you did not belong to me then-
and neither do you now,
so why and when and how
is it
that this
separating
tears me into pieces,
and can be a bittersweet relief in
one breath,
and a chest-crushing weight
in the next?

we are shooting arrows across caverns
sending up flares that can't be seen-
we have lost our common ground now,
and there are oceans
in between

i'm sorry, love,
i'm sorry-
i don't have any fight left in me
and
i can't bridge these distances
alone.

(i never could.)