Grammars of Absence

Grammars of Absence

Poetic lyrics to unrequited love

by R.E. Slater

We did not fail at love.
Love failed to find a place
where it was allowed
to live.

.

.

.

I learned devotion

by standing still
while happiness
passed me by.

.

.

.

Your absence

became my companion -
the only one
who stayed.

.

.

.

We spoke of weather,

and other safe subjects,
while our hearts
stood outside in the cold.

.

.

.

To love you
did not take courage -
it was endurance
without witness.

.

.

.

What you never knew of me
grew larger
than what you did.

.

.

.

I asked nothing of you

as love learned restraint
the way a body learns
to limp.

.

.

.

I mistook patience

for hope,
and carried it
too far.

.

.

.

Even now

my joy pauses
to see if you
might arrive.

.

.

.

We parted politely.

Love stayed behind,
uncertain
what to do next.

.

.

.

Your name

became a quiet room
that I learned not
to enter.

.

.

.

Some loves are never lived -

they are bourne,
like the weather,
no one remembers predicting.

R.E. Slater

December 17, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Unentered Rooms

There are rooms in my heart
where I pass each day
fearing to open,
Doors polished by hesitation,

left shut;
handles warmed by my hand,
but never tested.

In each room lives your name,

set lightly on a table
in gathering dust

and afternoon light,
undisturbed, and unforgiven.

There I learned to hope
by keeping still -
listening to your footsteps
stopping occasionally outside,

but never crossing any threshold.

Some lives are lived this way:
not by what we lose,
but by what remains intact,
waiting breathless, in hope,
unrequited, unentered.

R.E. Slater
December 17, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

Fragments of Love

We did not speak of love.

It would have asked for more

than our worlds could allow.

So we learned other skills:

to wait without hope;

to leave liaisons as we found them;

to call wistfulness by gentler names.

What was never given

could not be taken away.

And yet, the heart remembers

the touch of the hand,

the look of the eye,

the lightness of one's voice,

and distance which gapped

between us.


R.E. Slater
December 17, 2025

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved