Regret: A Loathsome Lonely Torture Poem by Rachael Swiss

I pretend to sleep beside you -
Lying awake with heightened awareness
Attempting to preserve this moment,
Encapsulate it in a memory,
So that I may return to you;
Play it again in my mind
When I miss you,
Always.
I long to tell you
I love you
But fear has made a humble home
On the tip of my tongue,
And I roll it around -
The words in my mouth melting
Like chocolate
In the palm of your hand,
Which lies resting in the swell
Of my body; the side, the concavity,
The hourglass which makes a woman
And along with times like these
Breaks her.
Nobody loves a broken girl
Except in fragments
So I capture this scene
With others like it
In my loosely-woven mental net
That I may release you now
And treasure you tomorrow
When I'll sleep alone and hopefully,
In dreams,
Find the courage to look you in the eyes
And say,
'I love you'.