What love felt like

It's been a long road

I thought I knew things

but I don't know a thing

Older and wiser, sure

but not wise enough

I never saw this

great disaster looming

What made me think

this time would be any different

what made me think

I could shed my skin

I've written thousands of lines

to some strange god

listening somewhere

but immobile, mute

I should burn these pages

let them rise like incense on the breeze

let them rouse the slumbering god

let them burn in its nose, speak in its ear

Words are weak, I know

words are nothing, really

just sounds we lend meaning to

just another weary wind

blowing to and fro

These lines are impregnated with pain

heavy with guilt, with blame, with shame

with the fullness of knowing

that I have lost all

How many times does a man

have to pick up the pieces

put his pants on, wash his face

every morning

like what happened didn't really happen

How many times do I have to see her face

dissipate in the night

how can one woman

slay me, lay me low

so many times

If there's anything that makes me fail for words

it's her, it's us, it's this feeling

that refuses to go away

If I could burn down this body and walk away

I would

but she would remain a part of me

Sometimes things die

and we don't know why

and sometimes things refuse to die

against all odds

Sometimes we live in the great nothing

between what we had

and what we cannot have

like some sort of wanderer

trying to remember

what love felt like.