A Slow Death Poem by Karen Touzalin

We used words to fill the distance between us
more words than the 4000 miles that separated us
words that sealed my fate

Each morning, a new beginning
Each night, a rebirth
of emotions
once laid dormant
resting in an uneasy peace.

Daily,
I felt you take form and materialise
into my love

Now, in your absence, I hold your letters close
as proof of your existence
still yearning for words, any words
words to explain
just what I did to make you turn around
and take your love away

You seem to reject the notion that there is no me without you
even though obituaries are being written
that say otherwise

I can no longer speak,
my emotions have been sequestered into silence
So I turn inward to memory of you
and the words you left behind,

It is so deafeningly quiet now
Even I can hear the sound of my own heart breaking