Pathos

I saw him today, as I have never seen him before.
He was aged and weary, as though all the vibrant life I once knew him for 
Had been sucked clean from him.
He was hard to recognize;
Those eyes of his, once alive and argent,
Had all but lost their splendor.
And I was sure that had I checked him for a pulse,
I would not have found one.
He was a stranger now, although I swear I knew him once.
I may have even loved him then.
But what was once our verity was now lost.
Our affair was nowhere near salvageable,
And it was with a heavy heart that I realized this was so.

So there we were:
Face to face as we had never been,
Leastways not in some time.
And all I could think of was where we began.

The night was dark and crisp,
And I could feel that there was something in the air.
An electricity that rippled over my skin and left me burning;
A sensation that I didn't recognize, but one that I would come to love.
It lit a fire in my heart that ignited in me the desire to love you;
A blaze which burned with such intensity and such despondency that 
I dare not snuff it out.
I was naive enough to wonder as to whether it was love or lust,
But intuitive enough to know the difference.

And I wasn't sure until he put his hands on me.
It was then that I was certain, as soon as I felt the world around me 
melt away into nothingness,
A plethora of indistinguishable colors both dull and bright as they ran together.
It was in this world that I discovered myself,
Wrapped in the embrace of an individual who would prove otherworldly.
I spent what felt like years in the middle of a dream,
Swept up in a fantasy that my heart allowed my head to believe,
Although I'd always had my doubts.

But eventually, as all good things do, these colors faded,
And I was left in a blackness whose depths knew no end,
With nothing to do but wonder where I could have gone wrong.
And it all came down to this:
A final farewell betwixt two supposed lovers,
Where there would be naught but asperity left in their wake.

And still I waited,
In the hopes that there was something I could do.
I silently wished that there was something else.
Something lost between the lines,
Perhaps so infinitesimal that I had not yet caught it.
I would have searched your face, if I could see it still.
If only you would let me in.