Alone Poem by Sarah Dharmasiri

The ping merrily danced across your phone, across your life, cross your lies.
Gliding cheerfully between us, Soviet, a secret.
Sweat pricking under shaky hands, mouth drying, spittle acrid.
Slowly, with each green battlefield, each verdant square,
my world, my life, corrupted and diseased.
Addictively, traitor finger flicks, teasing out more truth, casting shadows into dark corners.
The lies you told me, yourself, our future.
I sit, forcing pleasantries from my own mouth, gagging on the bilious burn.
I am now twisted in the reflection of your deception.
Like the tinsel snaking and suffocating the tree above brightly wrapped promises of love.
Behind the looking glass there is ever only shadows.
Only the painful truth now glares back.
I am alone. I was always alone.