How is it this empty space next to me
Reminds me of this hole left in my heart?

No doubt many feel like I do?
knowing my  love’s lips will
be touched by another’s;

Their body will be caressed by someone else’s hands
They will hold each other the way we use to hold one another.

But the real question I wonder, will they make love the only way we could?
Will he play her like a violin or move his fingers across her keyboard like mine once did?

Doubtful!

I’d like to say the pain goes away or at least fades, but that would be a lie.
It only hides deep within us, waiting, searching for a way to rise to the surface.
Like an angry beast rising from the ocean floor, it wants no chains.

Hollow… like a tree trunk, an empty treasure chest,
these are the emotions you experience knowing they are laying in the arms of another.

I am tormented in my dreams, days are joyless.
If only courage could come to me
to end such daily, no wait, hourly misery,
No doubt I’d find the peace I long for.

Michael Palmer

written years ago - I received an email from a girl who was expressed some of these ideas, so I wrote a poem with some of my own emotions in it.