They Break Apart
Loves and lovers are parts in a play
acted from need or passion,
necessity or happenstance or duty
or merely not to be lonely for a while.
Loved in considered or unconsidered ways,
given or withheld,
perhaps with tenderness,
perhaps terror,
conscience or unconsciousness,
in dark rooms lit by a single bulb,
in the sunlight of bluets and corn flowers,
on a stage, with a script and other actors,
an audience, and the potential
for success or disaster.
If terrible enough or not attended to,
the play closes after a single performance,
finished almost before it’s begun.
It may enjoy a long run,
the audience growing larger with each recital.
Most though become mere skeletons
draped with the dry skin of life,
a dragging-on rote performance bereft of passion.
They end this way.
They break apart.
They just do.
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