My Pain (to be read out loud)

(for J.)

What do I say?
What do I say to the pain,
“Pain, go away”?

You are my pain;
you define what I am.
What would I do without you?

We have been together so long
like a wartime couple who married too young
and stayed together for the sake of the kids.

But this is the nineteen-nineties –
I don't need to take this. (Did I say that?)
Yes; go away. Go away now!
It won't be the same
but then
it never should have been.


5 June 1994
 
 
Three years is a long time...