Quiet conversation

We spoke to each other last night
with tired voices
and I closed my eyes because the lights were off

You were weary when I came home
feeling the weight of another week
and I hoped you could slough off some of the burden
by this point in the year but you just
piled it all on

I made a joke
and you teared up
trying not to cry
remember when you claimed you never cry
and then spent the next five years becoming emotional
seemingly at every little thing
while I could only watch
like a cat watches nothing
sitting on the windowsill
understanding nothing

It wasn't an argument
just an acknowledgement that I knew something was up
that somehow fear and despair
had taken hold of your life
causing you to lose feeling in your fingers
and your feel for sunshine
on your cold hands

It scares me
to think that you may not recover
the way you struggle to cope
with simple things now
it isolates me
from you and from other people
a silent struggle

You started crying again after we talked
and I felt sure that I had found a way out
saying the obvious
that you needed to understand yourself
and find what your life is all about
and that I was encouraging
and would be there for whatever changes or goals you needed or had

But you lobbed it up on top
of the comical tower of worry that you
carry with you
and I heard your shoulder joints crack again
under the weight