Bittersweet Remedy

"Let's talk about it," he says.
"Talk about what?" I reply.
"You know... That thing you do,
when your head's in your palms,
and you face the ground...
drifting off into this abyss of a silent retreat."
"Even if for a minute...
That minute feels like years,
because I don't know how to reach you." he says;
so blatantly clinging onto this idea
that I could communicate the intricate logic of matter and emotion.

"If I told you, you'd hold it against me." I said,
as I toss a quirky smirk his way,
and just as easily change the focus of my eyes on him,
to my eyes back on the ground.

He sits there, glaring, ever so content with
what I would have to say after that...
And so I gave in.

"It's the smell. Your smell.
Your stench that retraces the steps back to last night.
The smell that identifies who we've become.
We're not lovers, dear.
We're not even friends.
We are two strangers, trying to find time in one another.
Time that cannot be acquired.
Time that cannot be made.
Time that, even if we had the time, wouldn't have the time for."

As I gently glaze my calloused hand across his face,
just barely shedding a tear...

"We've become entangled in a web. A deceitful web.
Whereas you wanted to connect,
I wanted to intertwine.
Whereas you wanted to dance,
I wanted to move.
Whereas you wanted to love,
I wanted to fuck.
And while it was prolonged, dear...
The scenario hasn't changed.
I can't love you.
I won't love you.
I'm not even sure that I want to love you.
But I did love us.
I loved us while we kissed,
And touched,
And tasted the salty sweat off of each other's bodies;
I loved your masculinity tracing my shadowscape,
And beckoning to invade the space
between my hard place and your rock.
I loved us connected, from your frontal pole, to my south, reclined.
And your milky linger just barely on the brink.
It's been a morbid diathesis of carnival flesh,
masquerading as idle lovers...
But where there's idle connection,
There's also a sign-off.
And my dear, I've signed off.
Why haven't you?"

And it was then, as our lips pressed firmly
against each other's... For the last time.
That he understood.
He understood.
And walked away.