I don't think
there's anything
left in me.

My therapist asked
"why do you keep going back to a dry well?"
echoing the chorus
of friends, family, clergy and strangers.

And I don't know.
The honest answer is
"I don't know."

And so, inevitably the question comes up
"do you want to be happy?"
And I know the easy answer is yes.
But when have I ever suffered easy answers?

Ah, suffering!
In a previous poem some folks corrected me
because I prayed that God would make
my pain unbearable.
"You must have meant bearable."
No,
I didn't...

"Do you like living this way?"
It takes me a moment to respond.
"I do not know..."
"Why do you keep going back to a dry well?"
"Because she keeps putting a cup of water down there now and then."
And it occurs to me that I'm still not getting enough to drink.
The time has come to show her
what it means when a gentleman
finally says goodbye.

"She has no empathy, Mark. She is incapable of love."
And I start to wonder if love exists at all.
To be fair, I've never even witnessed
that pure love I've heard about
between mother and child.
Not with my mother,
and not with either of my wives.
She probably slept like a baby last night.

I don't know why I seek out the type of relationships that I do.
"you're a fixer, you're a nurturer.
Who takes care of you?"
"I have a great circle of friends..."
"But who takes care of you?"
...
Nobody.

So I laid in bed last night
listening to the old church songs
that Henry used to play when I was minister.
And I clutched at my sheets and sobbed
wondering where God had been all that time.
For while my acute loneliness could be traced back
to my wife leaving,
at least she was tangible.

This morning, the birds chirp...
but even they don't seem into it.