A Criminal Confession

I never could touch you,
never could witness the depths of what you truly felt;
that wound that bloomed sudden in the middle of the night
deep in your chest—
I could never heal it.

Your past remains unknown to me;
and when feeling breaks through, unbidden, unguarded,
in that undefended moment—
I could not hold you close enough,
could not grip you tight.

When fierce emotion closes around you,
I could not be the companion to your solitude.

That smile you wear at once to hide the pain,
plastered across your eyes and face—
I never understood its meaning.
Truly, I have never yet known you.

Even as your hurt began to gather, to harden,
I never once turned back to look.
That day, tears gathered at the corner of your eye,
they gathered there, yes,
but I gave them no weight.
I never saw what lived inside you.

You held my hand so tightly then…
the way silence holds itself against a wall,
nothing but a long and weary breath.

In the warmth of your lips
a fragment of a smile,
in your eyes' gaze old memories—
and I am haunted
by an unbearable guilt.