Why?
August 25th, 2009
She sits before me like a mirror, the phases of the moon written in her face.
“Why?”
One word. A question so simple- so necessary and yet so impossible to answer.
“I don’t understand. Can you explain it to me?”
No, but do I really have to say that?
“Please?”
We stare at each other for a long moment, her into me and I into her. Our eyes are so much the same- each flicker of fire, each shadow of doubt, rays of happiness, and question without resolve.
“Why did things go so wrong?”
Why couldn’t you have asked when? I know the when. I even know a good deal of the how, but the why…
“Why us? Them? Me?” She withdrew into herself. I knew the motion well.
Why indeed. Why can’t you ask something else?
“Why can’t you answer me?” Her innocent voice left, leaving a more shrill and desperate sound to echo back at me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Because I was there too.”
She stared at me in shock and I reached out to touch her face.
My fingers met the cool glass of the mirror and we shared the same tear sliding down our face- whispering the single most important thing we would never understand.
“Why?”
You might be surprised, but I think this is a poem :)
Jessie: Really?! I’ll have to bug you about this the next time we chat if I remember. I have such an ingrained way of looking at my own poetry. I was brought up to think it was only poetry if I wrote it with a rhyme but I don’t look it that way when I read another’s poetry just when I read it. I suppose it’s one of those habits I may need to break just like one learns to lock up the inner editor at those most important moments of creativity. :D