I have tried. I have tried so very hard to correspond

To what you wish for me to be now: alone and never

Fall prey to self-derision or a lack of respect for your decision to abscond

And somehow find the motivation to carry on up an ever-steeper hill though

There is no longer anything waiting at the summit.

But you can’t know how hard it’s been, harder than I ever imagined how

When we were happy and ignorant and ungrown and whether

I truly knew or not, you are my best friend so who do I turn to now?          

To listen to my shame that all has come undone and will know

That you were so agonisingly wrong supposing I would never commit

Or that I’m not capable of many tears for the years of little plans we believed

Would be realised with tenfold the joy with which they were thrown together

Or the beautiful, mother-eyed children who will never be conceived?

I have no one, so the tears shall fall on my own shoulder via your old pillow

And the ring shall stay boxed in the attic next to Grannie’s old sewing kit.