They’re numb, my lips, they cannot smile to please you
There’s not a word that I can think of for tonight
You look at me across the table, plagued with melting
Candles; I take my glasses off – my eyes are tired
/
I’ve known you for too long, the same good old you,
Whose kindness peeled off my steel outer layers;
Who’d met me long before I met my solitary self and
Whom I allowed to love me for as long as I could bear
/
I know you hate the size and smell of my Cohibas;
You look unhappily at my tomboyish jeans and shoes
The one you think you care for never turned into a princess
She wears no make-up and has tens of scars and bruises
/
She fought black Spanish bulls in a small ring in La Algaba
And danced for weeks across the windy Himalayan plains
She learned to speak the many ornate languages of silence
She sits before you now, while her mind roams in ocean depths
/
Don’t blame her, if you can, for all her lonely, loveless choices
Don’t try with words and bribes, scolding and pleading to revive
The young and open heart, which was yours and yours only:
That heart has grown in years too big, too cold, too wild
/
Sit with me for a moment and forgive me when I leave you;
When candles melt away and when my shape grows dark
Your ring with dolphins will keep glowing on my finger,
Reminding me of all the things that I no longer love