Your Eyes Dance as I Die

     Your eyes dance with excitement as you tell me about your day. 

I listen, happily, as I have done so many times before. 

I smile as you continue, but

confusion washes over me and my forehead wrinkles. 

You do not notice.

How do you not see? 

These lesions, gaping and blood red. My fractured heart and broken soul.

Your face remains alight. 

Story after story of the beautiful life you now lead, the life where I only exist as a memory.  

     You chew on a strand of golden blonde hair, just as you did when you were little. How can you not see? 

You ramble on as if it all were forgotten. 

Your stone face as you left. 

Your teeth seething, spitting my failures as you went.

"You need to be respectful," I said. 

"What is there to respect?" you asked me.

 My entire existence, a summation of tragic failures in your eyes, and still they dance in front of me now.

 My life's work, all I'd ever hoped to be, burned to ash and scattered by the wind from the door as you exited my life.

 You moved so easily as you left, so effortlessly. 

Believing, with every step, I deserve these wounds. 

     I try not to think about you. It's the only way to stop the pain, if only for a moment. 

I continue to smile and listen, while bleeding profusely. 

I am glad for your oversight. 

 I don't want you to see.

 I will curl up and lick these wounds once you leave again.

 Each visit more painful than the last, more cutting. 

   We will continue these light-hearted conversations. 

Ignoring the gaping wounds each time you come. 

They will never heal or scar over. 

All we can do is move on.

I will smile, you will too, as these wounds fester, but you will never know. 

I love you more than my own life and always will. 

Even if your eyes can dance while inside I die.