Ruins

Have you ever looked at ruins long enough?
stood gazing at those ramshackle walls,
frayed at the edges,
stray weeds growing atop,
in that precarious silence,
when a ruin looks like it's just about to crumble?
In the desolate silence,
of your empty eyes
I see the ruin of a life I once dreamed of,
you, my love, the ruin of a cold world of unequal hope,
the death of our hackneyed notions of conjugal love,
Our love, a defeated disquisition,
indefensible in its uncustomary ways,
a common fate of the uncommon;
yet, your cold silence,
your acceptance of this fate,
.. my escape from the trails of the present!

Have you ever dreamed
of sitting upright in a coffin,
buried deep down under?
Ever woke up breathless,
found yourself crushed
between walls exploding to pieces!
As I sit up anxious,
in the middle of the night,
staring at the light bulb
turned on to ward off
the apparitions
of the dark fear of a lonely future,
your absence relives me of the
anxiety of imminent loss!
.. frees me from the pulsating pain of wounds past,
.. discharges me from the charge
of having to hope,
and bear in agony
this distance, of our own creation!

 Your silence, like your absence,
liberates me,
as death liberates the sick and old,
as ruin liberates the encumbered,
as loss liberates the diffident of the burden of being!


Today, as it rains