the hurting’s all around,
for him, untravelled ground –
he does not seek her world to know
he there remains, homebound

her heartbreak he has missed;
his own, he will insist,
seems worse to him – what he must bear –
her sorrow he’s dismissed

insipid elegy
he sings sans harmony –
there is no bridge to join them while
there is no empathy

the rain, it falls in showers,
we craft our jeweled memoirs,
and so the pains we bear (we find)
are ours and only ours —

and so it never ends:
the world of could’ve-beens —
because he just dismisses pain,
he never finds
real friends