The dance

Sad reflections after watching some friends

Imagine us moving around in a dance,
a dance that could only be danced by us two:
a dance that is crafty and steady and slow,
where the aim is to torture without using force.

Manoeuvring slowly, attentive and sly,
observing each other a few feet apart,
not touching but watching, responding with hate:
my partner, my loved and my loathed enemy.

The dance-floor, the battlefield, scene of our pain:
I try to gain ground and to break your defence
and you try to outflank me, to block my advance,
so in horrible patterns the dancing goes on.

Afraid that to yield would mean being destroyed
we each keep pretending the other's to blame;
we want to break free, not to pace out our doom
like prisoners pointlessly circling the yard.

When neither will stop or will hold out a hand
and both claim they never put fuel on the fire
which burns up their time in a hell of despair,
then how can the hated dance come to an end?