Cold Coffee

What’s the matter, he asked, his cup of coffee growing cold.
Nothing, I said, but I didn’t mean it.
Everything was wrong, his eyes, his mouth, his touch, his love.
He wasn’t who he was supposed to be, who I wanted him to be.
I stayed because where else was there to go,
he stayed because he had been everywhere else..
We were tied together by strings of disappointment.
My face revealed sadness, his told the story of no.
The room grew smaller every day.
The walls scratched by claw marks of failed escape.
The phonograph playing over and over and over
Muddy Waters, Baby Please Don’t Go
But I’m already gone,
my love, my tears, my soul,
faded into the wallpaper, ground into the floor.
His coffee grows cold, my heart goes dead.