Cold

“Cold”

I can’t take you to the places I have known—
Those are places I don’t want you to go,
And where I do not want to take you…
I walked those passages in the vacant eyes
Of those I swore could make It go away.
As I watched them leave—they offered no Goodbyes.
So, I don’t want you to try to understand—
Like that’s something I’d let happen to you,
And that is why I tell you lies.

What I long to tell you, that has broken me
Is that I laid to rest what could not be taken—
As I sacrificed what cannot rise and come home now.
My secrets bind me to those truths I cannot tell.
So I lied to you, and you believed somehow,
That you could lift me from this living Hell—
As though you never would judge me if you knew.
That is how I felt you lie to me as well.

I held your hand. With such pain
And in the sickness, I long to deny—
I begged myself not to lie,
But your hand was so warm.
I could not let you feel cold.
So I lied to you, to save my heart.
And the greatest lie that I have told,
Is to myself—one I have died to believe—
That if I told you, you would never leave.

If you could read the lines between my thoughts,
Do you dare say you wouldn’t care?
If you read the sentence
Of judgment that is mine to bear.
Would you, would you—
Would you miss me as I stand before you?
When a stranger stands where I had been?
Or would you remember me?
Would you take my hand, and never leave?
I don’t want to ask you,
I’m so afraid to ask you—
Because I don’t want you to lie to me.

© 2023 Marten Hoyle