Shelia Loves Deeply Poem by Lonnie Hicks

I want you to tell me that you need me-
is that so hard?

I want you to see me and not turn away.

I carve sometimes even a gentle glance
or better
a soft touch and softer voice saying
'are you ok? '


Rejection cuts like a dull knife
and kindness is a hurtful stranger
when not freely given and often
even if a substitute
for love
abandoned

Seeing you retreat inward
crushes my soul
and make me feel weak-
to weak to make it stop-
too weak to reach out-
and draw you out-
to weak to even cry sometimes.

No greater pain
than the pain of feeling unloved;
no greater din
than the din of silence.

No arm shorter than
the one which one
which wants to reach out
but is always too short from the lover in retreat
no hand ghostlier than the one which reaches out just after you have turned away.

So sex even is spiritless
yet it is better than
the cigarettes and beer
haze in which I sometimes find you
at three am TV snowing.

Worse, for any woman
or any man
beyond even all this
is the unmistakable sense
that you long for that something else
foraging with your eyes
to some stranger passer-by;
and I cannot re-direct
those longing looks
back my way
intoning in my soul;
'Don't you see
I am the one who loves you.'

We are the ghost ship
drifting upon the dead sea
and yet
curse me for the time being-
I'd rather drift in this maelstrom
with you
than anyone else;

so deep is my love.