Goodbye

We avoided the living grief of failed love,

like household chores delayed a day,

or more, dirty plates piling

around thoughts unsaid;

my silence;

your chatter.

Our impending sentence,

writ by your departure,

loomed,

a black hole,

a day of darkness.

Too easy to say it's too hard

to say goodbye;

even here in the afterglow

of this empty house,

this half-bed,

wishing the goodbye had been better.

We justified that.

I left the room of this poem just then,

feeling blindly the walls and the floor,

fetching a tissue to blow my nose,

noticing nails in the walls

like the framed birthday card you kept,

‘til now;

just fodder for the recycling bin

and a restless night.