Half-Way There

Marta Orlowska

 

My heart stoops

To make contact

Falters hissing

Beneath your boot

And goes out suddenly

Like a candle flame

 

I doubt I’ll ever

Occupy her again

She who is

As inhospitable as Venus,

An intermittent lover,

A full-time holocaust

I swore fidelity

To myself alone

And the debt poisoned

 

I don’t want for much

Because I can’t live with

The agony of disclosure

In the company of others

I am always someone else

On the bottom it’s clear

That if you don’t chase them

Even dreams will scar

 

To be invisible

I have peeled

My share of flesh,

Diluted more salt

Than all the oceans

Combined have wept

So long as I am unwilling

I will not be returned

 

I lost the moment

That we met

What remains

Cannot be spoken of

There’s more blood

Than architecture

But who can blame you

For walking away

When I was only

Half-way there

 

 

 

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