Poem Collection - MythOfHappiness - 14. Too Old

Too old for me,

You say

As I smile and give you the look

Too old

You think as I taste your lips

Too distant

I say, pulling back

Too far away

The gap I’ve made

Stretches for miles

I’m over here,

And you’re there

With the rest of them

And I don’t know how to build

A bridge across

You think it’s you

I know it’s not

Too old you say,

As I kiss your neck

From the wrong side of the bottomless pit

I taste your skin,

The salt and sweet of it

Burning my tongue

And I think about something,

Anything else

I bend down, undoing your belt

You growl, your hesitance

Melting away with each wild second

And I watch it all from the other side

Knowing what I’m doing, but not knowing how to stop

I know I’ll hurt you.

I can see it.

I know you’ll try and hurt me

I know you’ll fail

And I know that’ll hurt the worst

I know all this

And I fucking hate it.

Why can’t I be someone else?

Why can’t love be more than a word

Used to sell songs?

You gasp. I feel it in my chest.

Your eyes. I can’t look away from your eyes.

We’re so close, physically.

But I stay back.

I can’t be hurt, and that’s the fucking worst.

You collapse on me,

With an intake of breath,

Sucking it straight out of my lungs.

And you moan, low and long.

I let go and you fall back.

My dispassion disgusts me.

But it does not surprise me.

What surprises me,

Is the wanting to feel

The wanting and the ache.

You lay there, exhausted

And I roll onto you,

My head on your stomach.

I want to feel

For the first time in my life

I want to connect.

I just… can’t.

I don’t know how anymore.

I’ve turned it off for so long

That I’ve forgotten

“Still too old?”

I ask, and it’s so empty

You smile at me

“Yes. I am”

And I smile back across the gap.