To Love No More

I lifted you into my heart But one arm was missing As single wing and one handed I carried you inside All the while, you pointing at My lost absent limb… You told me you’d love me If I could find that one misplaced part The part that would then Make me whole I looked into tomorrow And searched through the past But my arm had reached out For something beyond my ability to see I could still feel the numbing sensation Of pain Where the arm had previously Been attached The vibration of loss Now prosthetic for all that was severed You pitied my deformity as I hid My eyes As best I could with only one hand Telling me the fault was mine For always reaching beyond what I Could know or see… And with your final stroke of malice You left me further disabled Climbing back outside a wish I knew Was never to be mine… When you left you found the old world Different than the one you thought you knew A desert of frozen stone with a black sky now Surrounded the stillness of your abandoned love… As you hesitated to turn around and Reenter my world The one that just a moment ago you had Admonished and left for good A lone arm reached out and closed the door Behind you Leaving you abandoned in a sea of loneliness And despair —to love no more (Villanova Pennsylvania: August, 2016) Dedicated To Lisa Wynn in the next AOP.