Dark Beginnings

It hits the table,

Your keys.

You sit down and look over at me with a look of love in your eyes,

Admiration.

Our eyes lock.

They meet and your lips begin to turn up into a smile.

Then it all goes black.

There is no longer light between us,

It is just,

Nothingness.

But that is not true because there is darkness.

And for there to be the absence of light,

There had to be light in the first place.

The humming of electricity stops

The 'click, click' of the fan,

The voices on the radio,

All stop.

There is no longer sound between us,

It is just.

Nothingness.

But that is not true because there is silence,

And for there to be the absence of sound,

There had to be sound in the first place.

But that is not all.

There is a love between us,

An unspoken love.

The buzzing of our atoms reaching for each other,

The sound of our hearts beating in unison.

I light a candle and our love illuminates the room.

We talk and there is no longer silence,

There is the sound of two lovers speaking,

Connecting.

And I know then that there is something there.

Night turns to day and back to night,

I arrive home with you sitting there,

Blank expression on your face.

Your lifeless head turns

And our eyes lock.

They meet but you do not smile.

The lights shut off and the buzzing is less significant.

There is no longer a desperation in our touch.

I do not light a candle that night,

Scared that the light will illuminate something in the dark.

Something I do not want to see.

I prefer the dark.

I prefer the dark over an unconfessed lover,

Over the “i do not”s or the “but”s

I prefer silence over the truth.

Our eyes do not lock.

Your lips are pursed together

And there is a tear forming in your eye.

I do not hear much.

Just the rustling of you beneath your blanket.

I have my own now.

We go night after night,

Hands to ourselves,

Lips not touching,

Voices not colliding.

How can I be laying next to you and still be lonely,

How can I see you but miss you.

Now.

It is like your voice is a commodity,

A flake of gold in my sift pan of dirt and mud.

Something I long to hear,

Something that is scarce,

Something not given.

Our eyes lock.

They meet and you do not smile.

The tear falls down your cheek.

There is nothing.

Just silence.

But there has to be

Because for there to be indifference,

There had to be love in the first place.

The absence of... anything.

Is that nothing?

Or is it just emptiness.

The lights do not go out that night.

I hear us drifting apart.

Feel my feet shuffling to the couch.

I see the loneliness,

Inviting me in.

I turn off the lights.

I light a candle and I lay down.

The candle illuminating my tear stained face,

The skeletons in my closet,

The monsters in the dark.

It illuminates my darkest fears.

I keep the light off.

I put the candle out,

Hiding my pain.

It hits the table,

Your tears.

And you sit down and look over at me with tears in your eyes,

Sadness.

Our eyes lock.

There is no longer love between us.

I am alone now.

I go through the motions.

I go to coffee shops looking for love.

Gas stations,

Bars.

I speak over crowds in hope our eyes will meet across the room.

I write poems and I walk the streets

Looking for something in someone else’s eyes.

Anyone's eyes.

Something you took from me.

Something not mine anymore.

I glance over and see a coffee mug in the air.

Covering a face framed by long black hair.

Different from her blonde.

Curls that flow down and bounce on her shoulders.

Different from her straight.

It hits the table,

The mug.

You come over and sit down

You look at me across the table.

Our eyes lock.

They meet and your lips turn up into a smile.

Then the whole world lights up.