Shirley Bassey would be so disappointed
I Who Had Nothing
I told him love would be enough -
love, that hollow knife I carried like a badge,
that wind scraping skin from bone.
I believed it, foolishly,
as though the ache of hunger
was a crown, not a curse.
We married in a thrift-store suit,
its hem frayed by hope and dreams.
No guests, no flowers - only the wind
and the quiet refusal of a match to strike.
Even then, silence was expensive,
and the walls smelled of rust and old coal.
Now we live above a gas station,
air thick with fumes, memory, and cigarette ash.
I paint my lips each morning
as if color could hide the rot inside.
The wallpaper peels like unspoken apologies,
the ceiling drips faintly,
like oil-slick tears from some buried sky.
At night he sings in the dark -
old songs that used to make me tremble.
I roll away, the sheet between us a border,
our breaths hissing like slow leaks,
our hearts folded in paper bags
and left to sour in the corner.
I gave him love, and he gave me love,
and yet it is a poor carpenter.
It builds no walls, fixes no roof,
does not stretch across hollow nights.
Sometimes I dream we stayed poor and happy,
but dreams are tired now.
They reek of gasoline and stale bread,
of burnt matches and broken clocks.
He said love alone would be enough -
but hearts don’t keep.
They rot if left in the same place too long.
I Who Took Everything
I gave her everything I didn’t have -
my songs, my hunger, my trembling hands,
my crooked ribs, my blood like a promise.
She called it passion once,
and I thought it holy,
but holy things rot when ignored.
We live above the gas station,
the neon humming OPEN like a coffin lid.
Her eyes scan the cars below -
their gold interiors, their full tanks.
Sometimes I wonder
if she dreams of another life
with another man,
with walls that don’t smell of fire and rust.
I write songs on scraps of paper,
edges curling, ink bleeding like veins,
every one about her,
every one a confession
of love unfit for the world,
of devotion that cannot pay rent.
Love is a match; life is wind.
We tried to build a home
out of smoke and shadows,
and the walls laughed,
and the ceiling dripped,
and our mouths tasted like dust.
She thinks I don’t see the way she wonders
what life could have been with him -
the man with silver spoons and clean sheets.
Yet still she is mine.
I watch her move,
trace the lines of regret on her face.
I gave her everything,
and she gave me her heart in return.
Which is to say: nothing at all.
Left With Less Than Nothing
The apartment is empty now,
except for the hum of the neon sign below,
and the faint ache of the man
who once lived here, breathed here,
gave me everything he could not keep.
I cook for one,
watch the fumes curl against the ceiling,
and every time the wind rattles the window,
I swear it carries his voice.
But it is only memory,
sharp and metallic,
like gasoline on my tongue.
I imagine the life I might have had
if I had chosen differently.
The other man, with gold and silence,
would not have sung, would not have waited.
I would have been safe,
boring, perhaps,
alive in something warmer than regret.
Instead, I had him.
I had his hunger, his songs, his trembling hands.
And he had me -
a love unwatered, unarmed,
beautiful, tragic,
destined to rot above a gas station.
Now he is gone.
I reach across the empty sheets,
my fingers meet only air.
I speak his name into the night -
no answer.
The echo is punishment,
the room a grave I cannot leave.
Love cannot pay the rent,
cannot mend the roof,
cannot silence the world’s cold judgment.
I failed him because I thought devotion alone
would be enough.
Sometimes I press my ear to the floor
and pretend the pumps’ sighs are his breathing.
I pretend because the truth
is far uglier:
love, when alone,
is only a spark in a dark room.
And yet I cannot leave.
He taught me how to feel,
and even in this silence,
I cling to it like a dying ember,
knowing that fire, once given,
can never be returned.
GBS
1999
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