LOVE & LOST POEMS:

         Photograph by AudreyLynne Waldbaum Castiglione

I STILL LOVE YOU,
BUT
NOT IN THAT WAY

By Michelle Longo-Bloom

When you’ve loved someone for over twenty years

They’ve stood by your side and eased all your fears

So devoted they’ve been through all of your strife

For the entire time shared of your together adult life

In such ultimate love you created a child

A pre-teen now, but still precious and mild

You brought him into this world with inconceivable joy

And you remember him thanking you for his beautiful boy

The proudest father right before your eyes

The happiest husband; his smile lit up the skies

The times you shared so special and true

So blissful to be with his son and you

Then twenty years later come these words from nowhere

And you feel as though you can’t live and can’t bear

When he told you, “Sit down, I have something to say,”

The words from his mouth on that life altering day

That unspeakable, dreadful, horrendous phrase:

“I still love you, I do, but not in that way.”