This food court catacomb
catering to couples in love
my table for one.
Opposite
the empty chair screams absence
proclaims the day you left me
far behind.

Too risky the return
insufficient the dividend of me
to warrant the investment of your heart.
Practical
you chose another course
paid your coin where you thought
to spend it best.

What next?
Ruthless
the heart excises
every trace
insufficient for your happiness;
and in my shadowhood
I haunt the vague underworld
that is your past.

But I will forget I loved you once.
My heart will set aside
the memory of your face
the recall of happiness
the tune your very presence
called my life to sing.

The ache
your loss instilled in me
will damp with time’s passage
become a mere murmur
below the threshold of my heart’s
hearing.

Time will go on.
Beyond the chasm of the
you-shaped hole
the no-longer here reality
that is my truth
there lurks the hope of hope –

‘til then this Styrofoam food
this bland, washed-out substitute
for nourishment –
this will be my life’s diet
surrounded by the echoes

of our long-concluded feast.

(c) Copyright Brendan E Byrne 2019. All rights reserved.