Candlelight

I need you close, candlelight, this house is so cold.

Six days a week, slipping on icy floors, shivering on a rotten mattress,

watching the sun grow old.

The shutters creak and fling open; the wind freezes my butter and toast.

A thousand blankets could not melt this tundra;

why aren’t you there when I need you most?

Once a week, candlelight, you flicker into existence with a smile.

My frown delights, heart excites, body feels sweet slumber—

can’t you, I beg, stay a longer while?

As night draws near, you disappear, without even a smoke trace.

My hands remember, my lips are tender, my mind hopes:

perhaps tomorrow, candlelight, you will love my face.

But tomorrow you are elsewhere; the day after is too soon.

Six days must pass, flipping over the waiting glass—

long, pretty sunrise and bright lonely moon.

I wonder sometimes,

if it would’ve been easier

never to have known you…