The Wall
Source Unknown

Their wedding picture mocked them from the table, these two,
whose minds no longer touched each other.

They lived with such a heavy barricade between them
that neither battering ram of words nor
artilleries of touch could break it down.

Somewhere, between the oldest child's first tooth
and the youngest daughter's graduation, they
lost each other.

Throughout the years,
each slowly unraveled that tangled ball of string called self,
and as they tugged at stubborn knots,
each his searching self from the other.

Sometimes she cried at night
and begged the whispering darkness to tell her who she was.

He lay beside her, snoring like a hibernating bear,
unaware of her winter.

Once, after they had made love,
he wanted to tell her how afraid he was of dying,
but fearing to show his naked soul,
he spoke instead of the beauty of her eyes.

She took a course in modern art,
trying to find her self in colors splashed upon a canvas,
and complained to other women
about men who were insensitive.

He climbed into a tomb called "the office,"
wrapped his mind in a shroud of paper figures and
buried himself in customers.

Slowly, the wall between them rose,
cemented by the mortar of indifference.

One day, reaching out to touch each other,
they found a barrier they could not penetrate,
and recoiling from the coldness of the stone,
each retreated from the stranger on the other side.

For when love dies,
it is not in a moment of angry battle,
nor when fiery bodies lose their heat.

It lies panting, exhausted, expiring
at the bottom of a wall it could not scale.

Original image available for purchase
in sizes up to 8" x 10".

To order a print, please email me
and specify the size of "yellohyb" that
you would like.  Prices start at $10
for unframed 8" x 10" images.

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