by Marcia Middleton

Created on: October 31, 2008

THE END OF THE WHOLE THING

What enables you to think that I can't see beyond your lies

When I myself live them, albeit somewhat less openly

Like the inevitable day my longtime lover left this place

And I, traveling down your too familiar road of infidelity

Said my goodbyes the way we had said everything before

I belong to someone else yet please take me as yours

And he agreed as ever before, no moment's hesitation

There in the deepening twilight of the first autumn chill

I let him kiss my neck so soft and familiar as daylight

Faded like my earlier feigned resistance to his advances

We had always been something without being anything

While you were off in exotic lands with that other woman

Hanging onto your sporadic telephone calls for dear life

I was losing my breath in the middle of a silent heartbreak

Over a man whom I could never have dared to possess

Who is now but a memory forgotten by all but myself

The one who held him dear where others just held him

I understood his wandering ways as he understood my soul

Wandering perpetually but never lost, never afraid like his

We lay still in the aftermath of us speaking without words

Chests heaving in discordant melody catching our thoughts

Like silently flitting butterflies having just sprouted new wings

The embodiment of ultimate freedom and choice we embrace

Every time we let our lips and fingertips touch in betrayal

Of someone who never saw either of us half so clearly

As we have learned to know each unto the other perfectly

Pretending that we are blind to the tiny gaps of armor

In carefully built walls designed to keep weak emotion out

We have been a four year un-choreographed two-step

Stumbling at times and soaring at others, but always unknown

The world surprisingly never had her keen eye on us

But you, who bears the name of religion and knows nothing of it

Were not in my thoughts but once at any moment then

And there in the brief moment those angels held their breath

Tears falling softly upon the quiet wood of our meeting

I was free and without a riot in my mind for that time

The most precious parting gift he could have given

I gave of myself freely for the last time and sighing left

Before darkness fell to grieving with my closing heart

In a cemented pact of solemnity and avarice to caprice

We spoke not of love or future communication but only

Of not forgetting all that has come and all that has passed

They say all's fair in love and war but what's the difference

Here when love makes war in my heart and in my hands

Fighting for what's supposedly mine, giving mine away

There is no brute force in worshipping the rampant god

For lust has served himself well at my table set for love

Which you divide and then give while my satiety halved

For nothing and gave fully unto my departing secret

Cradled trembling to my left breast above my life-force

Melancholy and silent for the first time I had ever known

As he lay me down in finality I was taken to the first

Of him and I, scared and believing morality lost

Before I ever saw your face, false religion, t'was forgot

An empty mirror reflecting only an empty stretch of shore

Barren and battered by treacherously tossing brutal seas

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