Hush

My love was a quiet thing.

It forced pretty color into my cheeks,

it made my clammy hands restless

and it made me linger in the moments when his eyes were brighter.

But it never made me stay.

That was my foolishness.  

The way his bitter winter blows

turned into sweet grasping apologies,

the crisp evenings when he’d grip my arms in a way that almost didn’t scare me,

the way I snarled and fought back instead of running,

that was my foolishness.

I could not look into other eyes after he was gone.

They were all so much brighter than his.

The disapproval of others is soft and silent,

and confined to the cages of their close-lipped smiles,

to their brief and pitying touch.

My foolishness is still there.

But maybe it’s learned how to be quiet.