to miss you

You don't know how lips hurt
Until you've kissed and had to pay the cost
Until you've flipped your heart and you have lost
You don't know what love is...

You don't know how hearts burn
For love that cannot live yet never dies
Until you've faced each dawn with sleepless eyes
You don't know what love is
~~jazz standard made popular by billie holiday

(penned on 12.7.2004)

your absence
is conspicuous
an uneven thread
running thru my nights

belly stays
tied up in
twisted thoughts

anticipating

maybe
he’ll call
today/tonight/this afternoon

it will be different
then...
he’ll be there
he’ll claim me
prove me wrong

i can only exhale
when you finally arrive
and
in a moment of honesty
reveal how much
you’ve missed me:
kiss me lightly or
stroke my face

and
as soon
as you creep away
the knots
return

i am paranoid
your early morning bathroom trips
often misconstrued
as abbreviated farewells

i never know
your schedule
because you never know
where you’re going or
who you might meet
in the mirror

i am
tired
of your glossy surface sanity
and your lone wolf dance

i can keep busy
and tell myself
i’m not waiting
for your call
but the pain
keeps coming
radiating thru my center
pulsing with each
passing hour
i wait
for you.

you are
sorely missed
but won’t allow yourself
to be needed.

my attempts to love you
feel in vain
hopelessly romantic
or just plain foolish

this used to feel like home
now it’s more of an empty nest

our relationship
has not produced
children

the foundation i thought
would give rise to
great things
simply is
no more and
no less than

i don’t
hate you
but
i can’t love you this way.

(c) 2005 l.a.m.