Bloody Feet Upon the Slab

That tiny pause to skirt the truth, half-reals you'd paraphrase, The subtle softly spinning gyre of cunning in your gaze, Vague reflections from your skin - a shedding, sheltering plaque, All concerned syllables sent swiftly bouncing off your back. Ever adrift on fiction's lost sea, never blown to shore, Too late I saw your hidden thirst - too easy to ignore Evasion and avoidance - thus was piloted your ship, You'd dance around, not run aground - you gave us both the slip. I failed your buried, rooted pain, I missed the reddened tracks, All facts would step aside your rime of displaced parallax, I slighted each secluded wound, the false-trod thoroughfare, So ends a life of wary silence, cloaked mutely in despair. No one knew you as I did, my reward there sadly sure, I'd like to think away now, yet the hard truths are too pure, Blinded, perhaps, by my own fear, I let out line for years, And all my stock of forward time now fills with bloody tears. Upon my closing sight of you, muzzled words within your eyes, Your final hour released you not - you'd walked too long on lies.