She was philosophically confused
and I, meanwhile, took the cold weather personally.
She told me she didn’t trust words. The most corrupt philosophical position
one can take. Instead of taking a stand for speech,
I, the gentle poet, caved, and let her corrupt view go unchallenged.
Speechless conviction, enlivened by really bad moods,
is especially powerful in beautiful women who adore birds, cats, and bees.
Affronted by dark November, I was too weak to resist the idea of silent truth
and its lonely, moody, grey. Once she established this opinion
and I succumbed, our love died. I thought it was for material reasons.
I hadn’t yet understood that speech, not truth,
is where human beings dwell. We stopped living for the other
and we became strangers. I knew what was going on
but I didn’t know what was going on.
Speech became secondary. In that moment, she was gone.