Hide and seek of the past ....

An unknown fear
sits on my chest whenever I try to sleep,
quiet as a cat
sucking my life breath,
making me stay awake.
His deep love in his concern

touches my heart.
But how can I explain it to him
that it is because She stays!

In all my dreams and hopes,
in my fear and anger She stays!
Reality crashes down like a
door to the tiger trap
and I realise that she always will!

She stays in between us
ever conspicuous by her absence;
an absence that is so firm and steady
in appearance!
She stays with her pregnant silence
so loud and verbal
in words!

Stapled to my conscience
like a nagging pain,
She stays in my joys and my doubts,
in my struggles and my triumphs;
like a deep wound that often fades with time
yet remains wedged below the surface forever,
like a stubborn thorn beneath a finger nail
making you cry out in agony, each time
you unconsciously brush against it!

In his sincere, loving urgency he
tries to convince me - it is only the past.
I smile at his impatience that splutters like
mustard seeds in heated oil, at my
persisting melancholy.
But doesn't he realise that
She stays even in his absentminded
reminiscences and stubborn nostalgia
and his quick embarrassed efforts
to come back to the present!

The love I have loved more than my life
is cracking underfoot
like ice in thin winter. For
She stays
like a rectangular impression
left by a picture frame,
a faint nimbus, a contrasting shade
on the wall within which I try to build my home.
Like a nagging despondent tune
humming in my head,
with her lone tear of the rainfall gone
his woman, she stays
in between our love
always and forever!