"Exit"

Of all the smiles to behold, the safest one is at a distance,
Both of breadth and of time: far enough that you can see it,
Being not so near, or so soon, to wound, to destroy.
How easy it is to lie back on your pillows
And attempt to control it, the sheer forced tide of memory,
Realizing at last, reinforced a thousand--no, a million times
Of what it is to remember too much,
To have seen too many things, and to have loved
Too many times without return.
And so you close your eyes again and you remember his smile,
Or how he asked you to be exclusive, but then stood you up for another---
The car in his driveway that was not yours, the marks on his neck
And his casual indifference to it all;
And it wounds you to know that in his life
You will have no real share, that these things are not meant for you;
That in his world you are second place, there remaining only
A memory of that last smile and the ones before it and since,
Successively losing their warmth and becoming forced.
What a fool you have been, but wise enough now to see the writing on the wall
And so you heed the admonition to leave, the voice in your gut begging you to go now
At the height of the party, bowing out when there's so much noise
No one will notice when you whisper "goodbye".