If Only

"Tell Me"
Tell me how it is done,
the cool, unmoved
indifference strewn
so casually about your life.
Yesterday's dust was
swept so swiftly
under the rug
never to dirty the feet
that walked upon it.
I envy the ability
to shut off the heart
and keep on living.

But the sun shines
upon you as you wake,
and the newness of the
day calls you from a
restful slumber to
rise up and thrive
without a care,
without a load to press
you down between
your sheets.

That I could be held by
you and am not
is my complaint.
I wake in the taunting
embrace of yesterdays gone,
the brisk foreboding of
tomorrows coming,
and today's unavailing
already exhausting my breath.

It is always the same.
The perpetual yearning
that I push down somewhere -
anywhere that it will
be undiscovered.
The pain,
my private groaning,
as I examine my
two able hands and
the irony of their
inability to bring you
back to me.

I say it always.
If only.
If only I could be swept up,
swept away,
off of my feet
and into the arms of
the man that would
hold me and never
let me go,
not for anything.
If only he were you.
If only it were you
that keeps me
and you that I keep.