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To Love in Silence
- I sit in silence, awaiting his return,
- Silent thoughts wandering alone in my mind,
- Thoughts of his happiness, and of my sorrow,
- Sorrow that began when he told me all his dreams,
- Dreams I must ever guard with my silence.
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- It hurts that his dreams are not the same as mine,
- Mine, unknown to him, were already realised,
- Realised when together we bought this house,
- The house we have shared with each other as home,
- A home where I could love him in silence.
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- Perhaps it would be best I quietly leave,
- Leave while he’s away proposing to his girl,
- The girl of his dreams and of my shattered hopes,
- Hopes that as they must, now become my despair,
- Despair I must conceal with my silence.
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- He will come home to announce his happy news,
- News that will rend my heart from my chest,
- Still beating and beating till it is still,
- While he dances his steps of life and love,
- And my love lives and dies in its silence.
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- He once told me friendship can give life to love,
- My love is for him but his love is for her,
- And she deserves it all, for she adores him,
- With devotion that makes me love her as well,
- I am cursed to love them both in silence.
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- I must be seen rejoicing in their union,
- I shall give them both my blessing and this house,
- I’ll sign the deed to him as a wedding gift,
- A gift for him to find after I have gone,
- To applaud their love and deny my silence
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- I must hurry because he will soon return,
- My tears try to sign the deed. I hear his car,
- I cannot see where to sign it. He is here,
- I’m too late to escape with myself intact,
- He walks in. No word, no sound can be heard.
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- We stand facing each other like ancient statues,
- Carved from the granite of youth, by the tools of gods,
- Gods so envious that they make us both to cry,
- But he should not be weeping. What has happened?
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- “She will not have me. She says it’s you I love,
- And she is right. I have loved you in silence.”
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