How Many Lives?

A poem I wrote, once

How Many Lives?
-------------------------
Cheek against cheek
in the sweaty heat.
So good we are together,
the way I was.
The curse of the solitary man,
to live with sand in the mouth,
not to understand why,
to cry without tears
for lives unlived save in wasted years.
Petal-butterflies wither
without taking wing.
Regret is total.