…you do not know love

Yearning to possess
the emptiness of the flesh
what I left behind

your eyes deceived me
twilight shadows in my heart
just waiting to fall

you…
you do not know love
not the selfless kind
given without expectations

you…
you are always admiring
your own reflection
what you see in the mirror is just a disguise
unable to banish the lies in your eyes
the truth is not hidden beneath your many masks
you are the man with a thousand faces
unaware that your nature shows itself
for a reflection has no secrets

you…
you are always shifting
in the shallow waters of your existence
between reality and illusion
the thin line that you walk
holding the strings of my heart between your fingers

you…
you do not know love
the kind that a mother
instinctively bestows upon her children
the kind where a person gives the gift of light
letting it settle freely upon the darkness of others
even if their own flames fade to embers in the giving

you…
you do not know love
the kind that in the absence of plenty
some will freely give
with no thoughts of consequences to self
no thought for their own lack

you…
you do not know love
the unselfish acts
a natural human impulse
arising from the deep wells of empathy
ancient wells that cannot be found on any map
if one should seek them

you…
you do not know love
you have not visited the ancient wells
for they lie mysterious and silent
in the depths and the far reaches of the soul
far from the seas of selfishness and greed
far from the rivers of excess and moral decay
endlessly replenished by each selfless act
each act of love
enacted for no other reason
than love

you…
you do not know love
for your wells are dark and ever empty

the deepest of wounds
I needed more time to bloom
left in the shadows

hands on the mirror
listening to my own thoughts
tapping on the glass

© Ann Bagnall