“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep.”
-Robert Frost

It’s right for you not to speak,
for those words you didn’t say spill;
they spill into swollen silences
that deafen all my defenses.

It’s okay for you to withhold your touch.
How much of me is left to melt on my couch?
Not one finger of yours did you lift.
Yet, your touch has left me hanging on the tilt.

It’s best that your ears can’t hear my whispers;
it’s shocking that you can’t hear the screeching of my snickers.
I have taken off on a sprint, coming right into you;
there is a wall between us and you have no clue.

It’s better that you can’t smell the flowers
in the woods, under the tree that towers…
It’s a miracle that your olfactory lobe stopped working,
even as I step back into passivity, limping.

It’s right for you to be in the dark,
for all that we have done nothing to mark
have already been done in that space
called nothingness, where there is no disgrace.