Best Poems Written by Rachel Ross

My Picture

Their love affair 
Was coming to an end
He'd felt the shadow 
Of it
For a while now

It started
With subtle 
Changes 
In her ways with him
Then ones so drastic
And harsh
He wondered 
If their love
Had ever even really been

She couldn't see
How her actions 
Sliced through him
Like a knife
His cries and pleas
Were mute to her now
Any that penetrated through
Just served to irritate
And push her further 
Away
This, 
In return
Pushed him further into his
Resentments
And away
From himself

And he realised 
Now
He'd lived in a small cave
In his mind. 
Where he'd painted
A beautiful picture
With all the passion
And commitment
Of a ressiansance 
Artist. 
Her careless 
And 
Thoughtless ways
Infiltrated his cave
Vandalised his picture
Stripping the luminous colours, 
Dazzling scenes, 
Corroding its magic

The more he saw this
The more tainted
Damaged
And darker his soul became
Anxiety
Resentment
And pain became his daily bread

He didn't know this version of her
He didn't want to
But he couldn't leave
Becuase 
Of small moments
When they held each other, 
A certain look in her eye, 
Or turn of her head. 
Her childlike ways. 
He should have accepted it 
There and then
Should have known 
That small moments
Were just small moments
He should have 
Ran
Closed the doors of himself
Held his head high
Instead he refused it
And with blind hope turned away 
From all that screamed in his face 
And 
Focused on his picture
Painting more furiously each day
To preserve this beautiful image
His masterpiece 
Their future
If only she would stop
And be the girl she was
Or the girl she'd appeared to be
Or most terrifying of all
The girl that had never existed

He was half starved now
Broken and lost 
Existing in a different reality
That he was loosing himself
More and more 
Too

Then all versions of her left 
His reality shattered
And he sat in that
small cave
Of his dark
Lonely 
Muddled brain
And stared at his picture
Relentlessly
Filled with anxiety 
As everything he had
Worked for
Longed for
Destroyed himself for
Slowly started to disintegrate 
Into the meaningless nothing
It had always been

His picture is gone now
So is that man
He has learnt many lessons
Dragging the pieces of himself out of his cave
He's older
Worn at the edges 
And Corners
But 
He's existing in this reality
Finding himself again
His soul 
Slowly expanding within him
For him
And only him
He's learnt how to treasure it
And keep it safe. 
His heart 
And mind 
His own
And he revels 
In it

Sometimes 
On gloomy 
Dark days
That picture
flashes through him
It can still make his eyes
Brim with tears 
It can make nostalgia 
And melancholy swarm
All around him
But
Only for a while
And in those moments he wonders
Why
Must we drown
In a cherry picked
Sea
Of our own desires?

Copyright © Rachel Ross | Year Posted 2020