[the hardest part]

Photo @andriklangfield

the hardest part of you, inside the softest part of me

the stubbornness of your insistent lethargy, unbroken

and breaking down the barriers of the optimistic front I hold up, walled up

shelled up, fed up, I look around and there I am, surrounded

by the prickly piercing barbed wire fence of your darker opinions, predilections

erect, and holding me here

the hardest part of me, inside the softest part of you

the insistence that maintaining resolve is the only thing to do,

unshakeable belief in the necessity of faith, surrender, and you are left

to deal with the futility of thinking that it would matter to you in the first place

forced and frustrated, arrested by apathy

you give up your arms, and wrap them around me

the hardest part of you, inside the softest part of me

the push-pull play of your indecision cuts me into pieces

with the precision of a well-practiced surgeon

in two, into folly me and volley you and no matter

how deeply your penitence penetrates, a battery of fury

still pierces the armour of your petitioned ardour

the softest part of us inside the hardness of this world

the vulnerable venerable love unreality behind the rosy lens

lends us just enough disillusionment to be caught up in our own

torment, unshakeable unmistakeable not quite unrequited love

alone together in the rising tide of time ocean of the self unknown

retribution, our solution, our resolution, detente.