Separated (poem)

Separated from love,
I access only
Other people’s words.
Mine are locked up

Perhaps in imagined agency
As if to open, and to say
The word “opening”
Were the same.

Deepest longing
Cannot be uttered, but
Only painted
As a window shutting
Out rain.

Like others divided
I stare mutely skyward,
The wish sticks to my tongue.
Water slides over my eyes.

I would like to say
But won’t, that
It’s unbearable,
This centrifuge,
This disease.

Yet I remain.
Seeking what is essentially
Gravel.
Painting it.
Raining.

Rising and falling
From this canopy
Of fictions,

Landing
Safe and unsound
On the ground.