This Heart Still Beats Without You

By

The day you held my hand over that conference table,
I’d welcomed love into my life, the least
I’m not romancing the stone, but the heart of intensity.
Your eyes bear no hard penetration
into mine, only kindness. I smile like a child to her father
cuddling his daughter for the first time.

I heard you took half-day off to be with your friends,
singing the loneliness away at the karaoke joint,
throwing darts, inundated with bottles of Heineken.
Last night, I saw her ballerina flats parked outside
your door when I slid the office paper underneath, quietly –
I leave not to be seen by you. Tell me, will you be there
when the world has ignored her beauty and intelligence?

The next time we meet again, somewhere elsewhere
my muscle won’t twitch, won’t be calling your name,
These eyes of mine spread as wide as open letters
the best of me is a rare magic, I’m too tired of assembling
insignificant pieces, the short-term memory of ours.
We move too fast and snap like a rubber band,
re-reading your messages over and again is my weakness.

If we were to love each other pragmatically,
then this love should be no pain, should depart like your furnitures;
unwanted, and tennis shoes missing its laces, hearing
hiccups – that’s my tears compressing, wintry and rigid,
Self-healing is in the process by the time you’re awake,
it’ll only be a while. This heart can live without you.