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