Sometimes

Sometimes, good things don't work out.

Sometimes, bitterness doesn't help numb anything.

Sometimes, the disappointment and frustration of an unfair situation eats me from the inside out, making it impossible to breathe.

At the end of the day, not every man who hurts a woman is a villain. Sometimes, he is merely doing what he needs to do in order to survive.

But where does that leave me?

Deep chasms cut into your rigid brow
painting streaks of worry across your soft face.
Your eyes carry with them
glassy remnants of sorrow and regret,
splashed with dashes of embarrassment.

Your words get caught in your throat
as weighted silence creeps through cracks
and seeps into long-forgotten crevices
leaving no empty airspace for
your sympathetic attempt to
appease the disappointment
choking me.

Discomfort wraps her tight arms around your throat;
I can almost feel her fingernails
scrape at your vocal chords,
ripping away your ability to speak.
Simultaneously she deposits a dense mass
in the bottom recesses of my gut,
magnetically binding me to my rigid place
at your right hand.

The urgent need to complete this complicated task
overpowers Discomforts reigning grasp.
As her lengthy fingers retreat,
your lips part to reveal a shadowed channel
destined to deliver the night’s misfortune,
despite the stillness of the dark
alluringly passing outside your window.

“I’m sorry,
I never meant to…”
Begging for forgiveness,
your words permeate the air,
slowly and softly.