Icicle Irises

You knew that I loved you.

You knew that I felt every sliver of pain as it cut through your flesh and lodged itself in your veins, the cold shards then pumping through your body. You knew that I wanted to share your infiniteness and your transience, your passions and your hates, your thoughts and your words. You felt my touch upon your soul but this was my mistake: my warm fingers were only scalded by your flaming self-loathing.

You knew all this, but you resolved never to tell me what ailed you, how it did and what colour my tone should take to strum with the kaleidoscope of your thoughts. You watched me suffer alongside you but never WITH you, because your capacity to consume anymore was worn thin. So you said nothing.

I begrudge you your silence. I loathe your apathy. It was winter in your heart, and when I came with spring’s wreaths to your door, you made me no way. A glimpse of you through the tiny window behind your walls of pain showed me the icicles that lay frosting your irises; a pretty picture, an ugly vision. And all this time, I looked and looked for spring’s thaw in those irises, a spring that once was, before the timeless winter of your discontent shivered in. A spring that was due again. A spring that I was not destined to bring to you.

Forgive me, then for trusting in love’s ability to change the seasons. Forgive me, my love, because I can hardly forgive myself.