Lost in the Labyrinth of You

Prose Poetry

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

You were a mystery, unyielding, to my probing eyes. I thought I could pick you apart like candied pecans in a jar, each one dusting my fingertips with the knowledge of what you could mean to someone like me. I imagined you’d be just as delicious too, the sugar to my spice, the crunch of meaning in a world that had gotten too soft.

But really I should have known better. You were no delight to enjoy on a lazy summer afternoon. No, you were the maze I’d wander while snow fell and obscured every pathway. I’d get turned around again and again just to know what thoughts raced in the recesses of your guarded mind.

I thought every wall was meant to be climbed and overcome — at least until I met you.

Even our short, clipped conversations made me curious. I wondered what passions beat below the surface of your practiced calm. You were the man undefined, a careful form left blank and discrete, the truth encased in a security vault.

I thought you were a challenge, but you weren’t going to play nicely, were you?

Such was the way of our every encounter.

“Tell me,” I wanted to say. “Tell me all about you.”

But you wouldn’t acquiesce, would you? No, you were too enclosed, cloistered in your own little world, for…