A Yearning
All the rooms in her head
made me jealous and sad.
“It’s me or them,” I said.
“You’ve got to choose.”
We got married instead,
made up our own vows.
I promised to stop saying
“I love you” every day,
anything needy or trite;
and, she, when we fought,
to fight with all her power,
to stop turning a deaf ear
to my love-begotten pain,
a blind eye to my oughts.
Then we wrote our wills
and walked our new idea
of us to the top of a hill
overlooking a graveyard
in the shape of a heart.
I yearned to be buried
one day in there with her,
but we had just agreed
to spend more time apart.
©James L. Ralston