Losing You

I did not love you well enough
or deep enough.
I held back,
disdained.

And now regret
rains on me
for there are no further years
to fill with opportunities
for sunny affection
or daisy days.

I cared.
I took care.
I tended
but I did not love.

Today
I crack open and leak
from these wicked eyes
because I hate myself
for my lukewarm neutrality.
Why did I withhold?

I know the answer,
but wish not to reveal it,
for it sounds like blame,
but I was taught it.

Grief
is irresistible.
There are no fences.
It slips into my blood
like a snake into a river.
I am flooded with a gnawing gloom
a distracted inertia
a sore this and aching that.

It compounds.
Piling up
like flotsam on the shore
tamped down
like heat baked sand.

I sway
between the remorse
and the grief
of losing you.
Losing you now
to time
I can’t recover.
And to love
squandered
unredeemed.