Misreadings Poem by Jayne Downing

She doesn’t mean it
Her voice is hollow and tired
But he misreads the sadness in her eyes
He thinks the hope has died
But instead it’s all the years she’s tried
To repeat her words again and again
Only to hear them become ever quiet
Falling into the well of the same
To become an echo of what they used to be
Giving way to eternal obscurity
If only he’d jumped
When her words were fresh
As they quivered down his spine
Before time
had worn them out.