No Blame
I spent so long wondering what it would feel like to fall in love,
That when it happened and it felt nothing like I expected,
I shied away, convincing myself it wasn’t what I thought it was.
That you were the wrong man for me,
And I was the wrong woman for you.
I wrote stacks of pages about love,
And what it was to love,
Even though the feeling itself had never yet laid
Its holy hands upon my bare head.
I breathed prayer after wretched prayer
As I watched everyone around me
Tumble from the tops of cliffs only to be caught by water’s soft hands.
This double bed is just too big for me alone,
Though my duvet kept me warm as you should have done.
As I should have let you.
One time, when I was young, electricity sparked through the plug socket
In my bedroom wall. I saw the tiny blue forks of lightning, and watched as they
Latched upon the nearest piece of solid matter.
My fingers, damp from tears.
It was in that split second when the lightning coursed through my bloodstream,
When I felt its burn and did not recoil;
That was what I expected love to be.
Unpredictably haphazard in its wayward wanderings,
Striking all around with no apparent pattern or reasoning.
It wasn’t like that.
It wasn’t…
you and me…
we weren’t…
If only there were a word that described the noise
A sigh makes as it is ushered out of a throat.
We were divinity.
But we slipped through each other’s outstretched arms,
Fingers met fingers in the darkness,
Clutching madly before each slipped away
The way a drowning man falls beneath waves
When Life has passed his torch to the next soul
Lucky enough to bear its flame.
We tried too hard to hold on
When it was already too late.
Copyright © Danielle Dickison | Year Posted 2015
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