Some Free Verse

Not my usual style. I'll never write like this again. It doesn't feel right, but then again I don't feel much good about the subject matter so that's fitting I suppose. There's an explanation below.

I sincerely regret not touching your hand.

I sincerely regret it because it had been the perfect opportunity.

So I woke up later, thinking and crying words that I mistook for tears-

The opportunity will not ever rise again.

Or at least not for many years.

By which time I will have dispatched the urge in me.

The one I refuse others to see.

 

To touch your hand when nobody is aware.

To allow, without even contemplation,

Millions of irreplaceable cells on my hand to die

Merely because I want you to stay, still-

I’m weary of The Wanting, The Poems, The Cries.

And how can you? Neither your faint uttering can last, nor a touch, nor a glance, nor beautiful sigh-

Nor I.  

 

But you. You always seem to know how to last; teach me or tell-

How it is you achieve that, (I need to last as well)

If you can.

Because I sincerely regret not touching your hand.

Author's Note

I thought it would be ironic to write a free verse about regret
after listening at a free verse poetry festival where one accomplished poet said this line, "I licked his face, he was not too happy about that. People taste like regret."