The Wall

They lived

with such a heavy barricade between them,

that neither battering ram of words

nor artilleries of touch

could break it down.

Somewhere, between the oldest child's first tooth

and the youngest daughter's graduation,

they lost each other.

Throughout the years each slowly unraveled

that tangled ball of string called self,

and as they tugged at stubborn knots,

each hid his searching from the other.

Sometimes she cried at night and

begged the whispering darkness

to tell her who she was.

He lay beside her,

snoring like a hibernating bear,

unaware of her winter.

Once, after they had made love,

he wanted to tell her how afraid he was of dying,

but, fearful to show his naked soul,

he spoke instead of the beauty of her breasts.

She took a course on modern art,

trying to find herself in colors

splashed upon a canvas,

complaining to the other women about men

who are insensitive.

He climbed into a tomb called "The Office,"

wrapped his mind in a shroud of paper figures,

and buried himself in customers.

Slowly,

the wall between them rose,

cemented by the mortar

of indifference.

One day

reaching out to touch each other,

they found a barrier

they could not penetrate,

and recoiling from the coldness of the stone,

each retreated from the stranger

on the other side.

For when love dies,

it is not in a moment of angry battle,

not when fiery bodies lose their heat.

Love dies panting, exhausted,

expiring at the bottom of the wall

it could not scale.

Author Unknown