The Unanswered--the Unasked

“The Unanswered—the Unasked”

I longed to speak, if only as a whisper
Hoping that you would answer,
Though death might take me
I feared your heart might break me.
Fragile perhaps my bones may be
But no pain is greater than that calamity
Of a callous word then spoken:
To a heart newly mended, so newly broken.

We were tears together,
Falling always, falling ever
To the song of roses red.
But silence only do you shed
On the petals as they wilt
As we justify your guilt.
But I must kiss the lie
You’re telling yourself and I
With that mask you always wear:
What face is under there?

I touch you as though sorrow is affection,
Seeing your face in my own reflection.
There is a world beyond that glass,
Into which I can’t help but trespass—
That land where our shadows breathe,
Where the twilight left them beneath
The faces on the walls and all of the leaves.
As every sin has its profit,
You tell me there’s a dream, and I wake to it.
I have grown rich with such gold,
To feel beside you is getting lonely, and cold.
I can’t reach what Better Things I think will come—
The very paradise you’re running from.

I’d like to see us buried beyond the mirror
But you’re reluctant to sleep, my dear:
As if it’s something to fear.
I see the stones of our final resting home—
But I see myself alone.
And I dream that someday you will embrace me,
I dream that some day you’ll finally face me
Just to say what I long to hear you say
Every time you turn away.
I imagine with the stones above,
You will confess it really was love
As I knew for years, too afraid to answer
With what I would say, if only in a whisper.
And you say, “I would have faced you, unmasked,
If you only had asked.”

© 2022 Marten Hoyle