A Dull Dirty Kind Of Grey - Poem

A Dull Dirty Kind Of Grey

I hold your faded photo in my shaking hands
Time has worn away your features
Creases obscure your face
The colour has drained from your lips replaced with a dull dirty kind of grey
Stained and marked I run my finger over the image
Frozen in time, your name falls silently from my trembling lips
Such a pretty traditional name, it suited you well
Five letters that have blighted my life, dragged me down like heavy weights
Lost in thought my mind wanders to the first time we met
Many moons a go, we were two ships that passed like fleeting strangers in the night
You were oblivious to my advances and feelings
I was an on looker, trapped on the outside
Knocking but never able to crack the façade that surrounded you and break in
Yours was a heart I could not take

I saw you from across the room and in that very instant I fell in love
I looked in your direction and my heart skipped one enormous beat
It was like a volcano had erupted, all of cupids arrows had fallen one by one at my feet
Butterflies filled the pit of my stomach making me feel like I was floating on air
My pulse quickened, my knees trembled with a desperate desire
For one brief moment in time I was invincible
Wonder Woman and Grace Kelly rolled into one

My eyes wandered like a lost lamb looking for its mother up and down your body
Memorising every line, every curve, every pore
Perfect, but not too perfect – you were far from being a china doll

I thought love at first sight was a myth created for children’s fairy tales
A dream, a wild fantasy – the kind you read about in trashy romance novels
Ones with cover images of men and women who all look exactly the same
Fake and plastic, too good to be true
My instantaneous love felt like a cliché, the kind of love famous people indulge in, not real people – people like me
I pinched myself, knowing that what I felt in my heart was real, very real
I was in love with you

Your dark brown hair beautifully framed your angelic face
Curled majestically around your ears
Eyes, dark and intense – full of mystery and intrigue
Glasses – not too big, not too small
Exuding intelligence and an air of authority
Commanding and matron like
Guiding waifs and strays like me to their port of call
A smile that shone as bright as a beacon, warning ships not to get too close to the shore
Skin pale and flawed
Natural not disguised under layers of fancy make up that required a chisel to scrape off
Lips perfectly formed, glowing cherry red
Your body delicate and perfectly proportioned
Long legs that seemed to go on and on forever
Finger nails painted pastel pink
Matching toe nails peaking through open toed sandals that wrapped like a length of ribbon around your ankles and legs
If you had been a doll then you would have been safely stored on the mantel
Away from prying hands, danger and destruction

I look into your faded eyes
One lost lonely tear rolls down the side of my wrinkled face
The love I felt for you brought my soul to life
Loving you from afar almost killed me
Drained me of every drop of emotion
To see you every day and not be able to say the words on my mind
To brush past you, to smell your fragrant skin
Torture of the very worst and cruellest kind
Hell on earth
To laugh with you and hug you as a friend nothing more
I felt like an animal being constantly gutted
Deflated with only my dreams, day and night, to keep me company
To get me through the vast loneliness of each day without you

I dreamt of making love to you time and time again
Of holding you close and never letting you go
Of declaring my eternal love for you
Sadly fantasy never became reality
You only ever saw me as a friend
In time even that drifted away
Soon your physical presence became words on a computer screen
Empty and distant as our lives moved in different directions
A solitary Christmas card
Treasured, saved, hidden away
Then silence, nothing – just emptiness
You vanished from my life without a goodbye
Erased, it was like someone had callously ripped out my heart leaving nothing in its place
So final, so brutal

I never forgot you though
The smell of your hair, your perfume, your essence
The way you looked, your smile, that sparkle in your eye
Your name mentally branded into my head
The years may have gone steadily by but my love for you remains intact
Unrequited but still very much alive
I look into your eyes and wonder where you are today

Dedicated to Alice