Querulously, I slip my guard
locking my eyes on the floor as
shaking hands fold together.
Lavender pervades my senses and that
unmistakeable smell of burnt ozone...
...gentle rustling of footsteps
bustling
from the ghost in the corner of the room.
Eyes centered on me
and I question myself on exactly how
I wound up
sitting in front of you...
...seeing your hands entangled with another lovers
and yet not...
...not being jealous.
Unsure if I feel attraction
or a desire for the past...
...unsure if I'm actually staring at your husband
with traitorous eyes,
following the curve of his neck
or of his thigh to his...
...his knees.
His knees.
Of course to his knees.
Why would I be looking other places?
Knees that hold much interest until
I laugh...
...feeling so ridiculous as I barely contain
the shaking that threatens to
vibrate my stomach out of my ears...
...that latches my heart in my throat.
A place that feels so like home
I'm simply waiting for the ground to fall.
The cruel buzzing of an alarm to tell me
that I need to wake up.
Or to hear your voice begging,
whispering "Don't go back to Kansas..."
it's like I have an angel
muttering into my ear with promises
of things that could never, ever be...
...so tempted...
...but I must enforce this solitude upon myself.
Don't you see, my precious angel?
I am the darkness of the shadows,
and I can never leave this hell....

Thinking constantly not of the joys that could be had.
But the pain felt
when those joys are forcibily ripped away....
I cast my eyes downward
...and I pull my heart away....