The Girton Poetry Group

Not Averse

The Other Side of the Line

“I drew a line under you today.”

You spat in my face.

And swiftly it scratched across the scene,

Barricading your past before it intrudes

In the vitality of your present.

I fear what was will not be again.

I once held you close; now I hold the wind

As it howls, painlessly, through my embrace.

If only I could feel its assault, maybe

This landscape wouldn’t remind me of you.

Faith, as delicate as I, can

Tear with a sharp breath or vicious statement.

But your line stands, reinforced, leaving me

Gripping the tatters of hope in my fist.

With nothing left to fight for, I battle.

Your line, not for emphasis, but division,

Pushes me back.  You’re there, but I’m still here

Where I’d always dreamed of staying before

Everything snapped and you left, you walked away.

So I struggle to find an end, an epilogue.

I stand, figureless, grey and distant,

My frustration, ever building, swelling,

Oozing towards the battlegrounds ahead.

The clash where flesh meets wire and no-one wins

Except you, you and your line victorious.