Lament

I’m sorry,
I can’t love you
as maternal love should be…
Out here I stand
beyond the glass,
a wall of distance
between my heart and the world.

Love’s such a quiet subtle thing
so easily drowned out
by need and want
and hungers wailing
from a time,
the time when children
learn to love
by being loved.

I’m sorry
that my missing pieces
make this puzzle
that is love
forever incomplete.
Yet I want to love,
you are so very dear
although my heart is mute and broken.

I know love is something like
the yearning crouched in here…
I wish, I wish, I wish
that I could feel
all that I know is true.
I wish that I could give you
all that you should have from me
without the firewalls
that make my space
a safer place.

I cherish you
as I have always done
I want to know
that this is enough for you to understand
all that you are to me.
I would not have
your heart, your life
be broken, too.

April 2015