Tranquility

I haven’t the right to be jealous To let that green eyed monster devour me Send my imagination on flights of fancy that end in tears rather than delight I loved you and lost you Critics would say I discarded you To my mind that is not so I did not know enough about love To value what we had To recognise it for the beautiful gift it was I had nothing to compare No life experience of belonging or acceptance To measure our feelings No way of knowing how to communicate my feelings No idea how to encourage you to express yours I know I have loved you with a deep and abiding love For the majority of my life You may not believe Or understand Or want my love Regardless it is true And how I envy Those that you love My heart aches Longing for you to cradle it in your hands To hear the soft timbre of your voice To see your smile transform your face Into a beacon of desire and delight To feel your soft touch As your brush my hair from my face with your fingers It’s not to be I need to be brave And recognise You do not want me.

The cold sleeps through my veins It oozes eerieness Like the bony wrinkled fingers of an old woman Reaching out Immobilising me Taking grip of my flesh My bones Seeping into my very essence Rendering me Only capable Of pulling my bedcovers over my head In an attempt to deny its existence Chilled through I clutch my arms across my chest Pulling them tightly Enveloping myself in a hug.

I don’t have the fortitude

To deal with your anger

To smile kindly at strangers

While you radiate hostility

I feel my insides shrink and clench

My body hunch over

Make myself as small as possible

Hidden

Invisible

I look up through my eyelashes

Head lowered

Surreptitiously looking

Praying no one is

I steady my breathing

Speak to you pleasantly

Hoping to restore,

not good humour,

That’s a bit much to ask

But a neutrality

An evenness

My heart feels weary

Sagging

My mood resigned

On one hand not wanting to anger you

On the other not wanting to placate you

A new voice is in my ear

Asking me to rethink my decisions

Reminding me

I can only be responsible for myself

My actions

My reactions

My choices.