Windows that have been shut should not be opened.
From time to time you can glance through them
and remember a life you once led, but be careful:
too much time starting out a window surveying
memory lane is a trap. You don’t look forward
because you’re too busy looking back. With palms
pressed against the fragile glass, you beg for the familiar,
the embrace that once protected you,
instead of seeking something new. You don’t age
and you don’t grow, you’re always that little girl
crying at home alone. Saliva kiss marks on salt-stained glass
from a girl who knew it wouldn’t last. A slam of a fist
with a wish to be fixed that no one can grant.
A crack in the glass where he tries to make his way back
to her but she cannot be found waiting there. She has changed
and she has grown, done staring at closed windows getting cold,
and when he reaches for her again she knows to pull back and turn away,
for this wasn’t forever they were facing together. It was the end.