forcing a Smile

@uootem

Forcing a smile, stifling an inner-felt yearning,
As the sound of your voice echoes in my soul.
Displaying appropriate enthusiasm for formality and politeness,
              Only my eyes give me away, secrets are revealed if you are looking,
How can I still feel like this?... time should have healed something by now!

But when we are walking down the same hallway on the same carpet
...when your path is lighted by the same light fixtures
...when the air that I breathe contains a hint of the air you just exhaled
...when the door you pass through, is the door I just entered
...when the same person that you greet is the same person I just talked with
              How can my heart be still with your passing by?
Why would you be anything but friendly when that is all we are now?
How could I expect you to remember such a long forgotten time of youthfulness?
              How can I think we could be anything more?

Recollection only occurs through experience with something genuine
              And the only reward for having loved and lost, is momentarily feeling it again,
The unsteadiness in a steady life, a scenic route off the expressway of a hectic world,
              A life in a loveless atmosphere, turned upside down by happenstance.

When I tire of the blunt object of regret, I will reach for pen and paper
              And create something new, a gift for a past love, a poem,
My words are figments of my imagination, and I know this true
              So when the poet has climaxed, I will restore my sanity.