good byes

I think it may be a sign of age that I no longer see the obvious poetry in torment.

Or maybe, that the torment doesn't last as long anymore. 

That inside this constant disaster I have dug the un-ending trench.

Shielded always from the pounding artillery shells all around me, tufts of dirt or debris raining down the only remaining evidence of the fall.

The relationship I have been nurturing slowly since last summer has dissolved and I think I'm okay with it.

I have lingering doubts and loneliness. I have brief fantasies of vengeance, misplaced of course.

Maybe it is a sign of age that I understand the fault lies with both parties. That we both did this wrong and could not right it.

Love is such a strange fantasy, and one that is very easy to get caught in. It is a vicious beast who will hold you unrelentingly for months or years just to let you go again, out into the wild. 

I wish in some ways I could say I was devastated. In fact, I have said just those words, but with a straight face.

I cried, yes. But I cried more for my own failure than for that of a lost love.

There will be more love. 

That is the only thing you can count on. That your most recent love will not be the last. That the guarantee of "the big love" comes over and over. 

The question is which battles to fight.

This, this would have been a war, and I don't have my fightin' shoes on.