Her insides ached
With the kind of cuts you get
When you rush while shaving in the morning
The kind that sting and smart all day
But don’t bleed (a single drop)
She was in the middle of a crusade
She thought she was telling me about her failed love affair
But I thought she was just in the middle
Of a hurricane,
A headache,
A boxing match with the world
And you could see her defeated eyes
Completely free of tears
Just another heart-wrenching daybreak on the horizon
Just another listless set of smiles prepared
You could see she thought herself silly
An eight-year-old again
Watching her daddy walk out
But then she remembered
Her daddy had loved her
Saved up a jar of hope and hidden it away from the mother
And this man now
Didn’t love her
Had chosen someone else
And the gentle tendrils of spent wistfulness
Evaporated, escaped into the air
She was cutting herself
On the sharp shards of shattered sweetness
Melancholy dulled the edges
Of her bright and living eyes
She looked at me
Lied about her wellbeing
I tried to scoff
To shrug it off
To rouse her to a healing wrath
She shook her head and kept going