lies and lilies

            with all the
            wanton wile and
           reckless whim
         and wretchedness
     of guilty guile
she slapped him
                across the shock
                       on his ashen face
                           thoughtless of the
                              ruddy disgrace
                                that stuck there
                                 stung and blazed
                as she hung there
          unamazed by the meanness
      and stifling sorrow of it
    the kick and knock
   of pain so powerful
         it spun him ’round into
          two steps then ten
             into a hundred running
                as away he went
                      small and disappeared
                                     into nowhere when
                       in distant disarray
             he somewhere veered
      through a door with
  wailing hinges and
 a bolt slid on cringes
to lock it all on the outside
                                      and within he hid
                                    away from her
                                 and began to blindly
                           pluck at every biting
                burr of betrayal
keeping instead
      to the coldness and
            stiffened sheets
                  of aloneness
                       as it was safe and
                          apathetic and stormless
                             and to love without
                              was to wither
                                      as would lilies
                             laid in vinegar
                      it was to live a lie
                to languish and long
             was altogether wrong
            yet a blunted dart
through his inconsolable heart
  a dulled and gentler
      goodbye and to the
             last of loftiest dreams
                     a slower death to die

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    Poetry: Lens On A Recluse
        https://windstrewn.com/2018/01/14/lens-on-a-recluse/