Too Bad, Mate

we sit at the dinner table
silently
drinking in the terrible
quietness that
has rested around us,
on our shoulders,
in our hearts
for three years, seven months
and ten days.

one of us had
to bring it up.
eventually.

i pursed my lips
tightly around my cigarette
as we talked, nonchalantly,
about love.
like it were a commonplace,
unintelligent
thing.

---

you've been knocking
on my door
since almost four hours
now.
it's giving me a
headache.
just like the sound
of your breath on my skin,
the taste of your name
on my lips, the texture of your smile
searing my skin.

---

the problem you see
is that we both keep accounts.
and only one of us will
succeed.
in the end.

---

you are the ashes of my
faithful time
sprayed across a landscape of
echoing memories.

---

you're on your knees
begging me to never leave
you.
for the first time in
the decades of our relationship
i see you cry for me.
they are honest, warm, awfully salty
tears.
there were days when i pleaded
with god that you may
shed a few for me.
perhaps when i told you i was
repeatedly raped by your uncle
during summer 1972?
or when three of our five
children died in my
womb?
how about the time when
i burnt my hands making that
omellette you ordered at 6 a.m.?
ouch.
oh well. here i am.
moments away from death.
twelve hours of unsuccessful operation,
three years of medication,
countless doctor appointments, tests,
insertions, 'minor' surgeries.
all of them lead to
this moment.
you, holding my hand, begging me
not to leave you alone.
"please, don't go. i love you!"
some of your teardrops
fall on my arm.