A Story Without Resolution by Marlee Witner

I love to read novels.

I drink lots of water

I listen to full albums without pause

I eat whole pieces of cake

And I read the whole novel in one sitting.

I don’t like pieces.

Half of an apology.

50 pieces of an 100 piece puzzle

The chorus of a song without the verses.

A few chapters of the book.

We left things in pieces.

In half-truths.

In one-way glances.

I’m still in half worked-through emotions.

Our book is still in the middle of the resolution.

But I’ll never reach the last page.

Because we are in a dormant cold war

Of avoidance and buried aggravation,

I leave a million questions on my lips,

 too afraid to escape.

Though I itch to understand,

I’m terrified to ask what happened

because if I light your match

I could restart the fire

and you could burn me to the ground.

So the book remains unwritten.

I wish I could finish it.

It wouldn’t matter if the ending was happy or sad,

I don’t care if I’m left feeling melancholy or morose.

I yearn to write the end of the book.

To scratch the final pen stroke,

To turn to the final page and know

that when I close the back cover,

I know the truth of the finished story.