Silent Immunity

I held myself together for three long hours,

Stitched with duty,

My face rehearsed in calm;

Papers neat, hands steady,

A woman performing survival

As though nothing had happened.

Then you appeared

Laughing, joking,

Wearing care like a familiar coat,

As if tenderness were still ours.

And something in me unraveled.

I bent my head to the desk,

Hid my face in borrowed wood,

And the work I had finished

Drank my tears in silence;

Ink dissolving into grief.

You asked, 'What happened?'

Your voice practiced concern,

Like it mattered.

I couldn’t answer

Or perhaps I wouldn’t.

How could I tell you

That three hours earlier

I had smiled for Mandy,

Listened as she spoke of you

Crossing corridors,

Wooing her between walls and windows?

She glowed.

She smiled.

And I smiled with her—

Because that is what good women do

When their hearts are breaking politely.

But what of me?

Was there never a corner of happiness

With my name on it?

No small room

Where joy might choose me

Without apology?

You tried to steady me.

Others gathered;

Their kindness blind, sincere.

I lied beautifully:

A bruised foot,

A broken tooth,

Any wound but the real one.

They nodded, convinced.

You were the farthest from the truth.

They said I needed a break.

You offered to take me

In front of everyone.

I looked into your eyes

And smiled.

How gentle life seems

When we believe it blindly,

Foolishly

As if illusion itself were mercy.

But soothing doesn’t return twice.

I think every tear

Sheds its own skin

To teach the body how to survive

Like chicken pox scars

Hardening into immunity.

You were the disease

Climaxing into a flood of tears,

A quiet epidemic

That left me weaker only long enough

To make me stronger.