the awfuls

All that bitter winter she was my jailer.
No more than an asiatic poppy, lethal
with her opium. she ran me ragged
until I could run no more as if
all will had left and I gave up.
For months I had refused to leave
that room, barricaded by my books
the great dead. Even when the jailer
left I was not free.
I lay in place, arm and palms outstretched
face up, I pointed my body due north
and let the biting winds of january
rape me cold.
There was nothing left to do. Once,
I thought you were mine and now
some other I had conjured had robbed
of all we had. You told yourself
I was dying and so, began
to rebuild. Each night, I listened
as the ragged waves beat the seawall.
You did all you could do. Tried to be
my nursemaid and I opened to you,
a baby bird, hungry for your love,
for some affection. A bride, I had
shed my whites, became some other,
hungry ghost, I rattled to no avail
and when the shouting stopped,
the revelation spoken all I had left
were the awful racking sobs that kept
you awake night after night in your
room across the hall where you’d been
banished, when all I wanted was your
comfort, your love. Was you.
Some demon had taken hold
charmed you with a half-hearted spell
but you believed and so… it worked.
I could not fight this foreign thing;
the language stuck in my throat.
And every day, every night neither
of us knew which was worse;
your coming or your going.
Departures and arrivals all traumatic.
What I remember most is how we both
saw that I was breakable - had snapped at last
You made me tea to make me whole,
made love and coaxed one glimpse
of life from so much sorrow.