Alone:
The old man on the other end of the line,
the white rocking horse in the cold basement,
the way that you cry.
The walls are taller and longer than you need them to be.
The extra space brings you the same kind of comfort as the winter,
minimal and bare.
You've gotten used to the echo of your feet
tip-toeing across the kitchen floor.
It makes no sense for me to stay, you say,
and yet you love the way the words circle the empty rooms and
ring back around in your ear.
He's there to absorb the sound, but the television's on;
the weeping must be something on the news.
There is always some reason for a riot;
it's best to just ignore the noise.
And the voice on the other end is there, but just barely.
Your words sometimes slip away along the powerlines.
Your tears don't come from the words that lose themselves,
but from knowing that the ears on the other end
have lost their strength to hear them.
And for how much longer are they there at all?
You ponder these things while the man watching the news
leaves his finished work downstairs;
it was supposed to be delivered long before.
Instead it waits alone for the embrace of a young girl's small arms,
spotlessly white in its bright pink saddle,
eyes wide and eyelashes ready to bat.
But the emptiness is motionless.
Time only seems to move on the other side of the walls,
while you're trapped inside, without excuses,
without the love that you don't believe that you deserve.
And so you forfeit yourself to the stillness,
saying your goodbyes in nursery rhymes through
hushed tones on the telephone,
while the white horse,
cold and alone in the basement,
ceases to rock.
