Tell Me

For years I’ve struggled with her,
Then she left for three score days
And left me to ponder what I felt.
And I’ve yet to figure what I feel
Or even what I’d felt in days past.
She’s hurt me so, but always had my love.
But what I feel has changed within me
To some kind of strange effluvium of love
That is so close in kin to love, but so very distant
That I cannot recognize its feel.
And yet it’s hard for me to say that I don’t love her,
For in my very depths I feel like I once did,
Like she’s the girl for me and never any other.
But she has hurt me so, and I shall never know
If she ever felt the love
That I was so familiar with.
Now I swim in seas of fear and doubt
That this new feeling will bring the pain
Of love once more to my broken heart.
I cannot let this happen; this cannot be.
Because I do not feel for her, or any other
What was in my heart in those days long past.
This new feeling though, what can it be?
It has the qualities of love and the air of kindness.
But with it comes the pain of memories
And the anguish of despair,
For half of me wants the past with her,
Yet I crave a life with one who shows me
No pain with a trifling glance.
So I ask again, “What is this that I feel?”