Unread Valentine (Work in Progress)

I got your card-stock letter of affection
On the day love's definition equals gifts.
Tearing seams on a post marked envelope
Revealing evidence that my world is not the same.

Purple, blue, or black ink?
I know your name
I know your affection
Who scrolled them?
The letters squiggle
Filling a white landscape.

The feeling of being robbed
Even though it was expected.
With fading lights and haze
The swirling patterns every day
Be prepared is what they'd always say.
Better like this or better like that?
Once upon a day was night.
Learn your independence.

I've tasted the failure at the table of self pity
Where guests sit like ghosts entertaining the living.
And I've danced the waltz of depression
With partners who were mute.
I've heard the lullabies of dishonest neighbors
Whose intentions knocked open my door
Stealing hot kisses.
And I've seen the sorrow of bruised organs
Fighting the viruses of life.

But now I feel.
I lie in the field of hope
Resting.
Still.
Beside the lilies and cool dark soil.