I watched the steam rise off my skin

like flames licking at my bathroom ceiling

and watched as my mug of chilled water

clouded over.

 

Hemingway,

I thought,

was a man broken over the back of time

over

and over again

but it was the break in his 20s

that killed him.

 

A man broken by a woman

is nothing new

even if that man faulted himself

instead of the invulnerable one,

but it is a lesson in love and

loss

that we should all hear.

 

The heart is not to be played with

tinkered with

or deceived,

because life will dig its powerful talons into

your skinny,

fragile

neck

for playing love like some game.

 

It could have killed me before

when I sat

desolate

puking in my shower

from the loss of an Artist,

or the, scared boy I was, having to leave

the Scientist that captured

my heart in the depths of a depression,

somehow,

more magic than science and I

didn’t eat, sleep or feel much else for months,

or when I rolled back and forth,

body heaving under the weight of the news

the Teacher was leaving,

my heart in her luggage,

or when you grabbed my convulsing arm,

“come here!”

the Nurse said so forcefully

and pulled me into the bathroom,

stripped off my clothes and made me sit in the

scolding

hot shower with you

like we did for so many years to talk.

 

Love was not lessened by having

been felt many times

if anything it became more severe,

at least you knew the stakes,

and only the ignorant or

incapable of love

would suggest it got easier or

hurt less.

 

Life had not quite broken me yet,

but triggers like angels danced in dreams

for many years past,

and certainly dance still,

to the same

macabre

song

of life, love and loss.