You enter the room and,
for the first time since we met,
I didn’t feel immediately relaxed when I saw you,
every word of this passionate pain
sitting heavy in my chest.
Words that you could never hear
because I could never say them,
words that strain against the binds
that hold them inside of me,
words dying to be received
by unsuspecting ears.
Finding an outlet,
the secret slips away
with each breath I take,
a blanket of nerves
covers my trembling body
as I concentrate on
each and every curve of yours.
I can’t let you go,
but I can’t let you know,
my tongue paralyzed by an unseen force,
keeping me from saying
everything that, by tomorrow,
will be too late for you to hear.
I watch you come closer,
can feel your breath on my face
as you lean in to mine
and I exhaled all the words I was choking on
as our lips connected
(it was somewhat of a release,
the words exchanged
without tone or volume,
unchained passions traded in a fluid motion
between parted mouths and closed eyes).
I never said a word,
but the electric aura in the air
told me that you knew it all before,
that the unspoken words and truths
that I had struggled so hard to share
had been shared at another time, another place,
that the secret I tried so hard to keep hidden
was never, at any point, a secret.
#267 10-03-08
