“Time does not bring relief: you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide…”from “Time Does Not Bring Relief”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Evade your eye. Try to see as others do
what is desired or refused. What went wrong.
Or right, then wrong. Objectively, what hangs.
Pull yourself together. Years are neither kind
nor cruel. You drag on. The girl is gone.
Consider that it might be time to call in
a professional. Blood is fearless, runs
to meet a touch, indiscriminate, remembers
the first time it fell in love with the world, unaware
that now you are alone. Leave the bed,
the dress of sleep that so becomes you, buttoned
up with pills. You are simpler than you think,
your fading flush upon you as you stand,
only your constant name held in your hand.