Bottled Words

I had a dream.

I was you. You were me.

In the mirror of ourselves

I saw my particular cruelty.

I am ebb. You are flow.

Two motions of the sea

Both interacting, avoiding,

Responding to different gravities.

I saw myself in your eyes;

Your heart beat in my chest cavity.

You were faithful when I was not,

Stable when I despaired the misery,

When I wallowed in the mire of myself

You tried to shake me, make me see.

After all these years, these miles,

These little love notes, all our dreams,

I still see what I could not be for you.

I shoulder that blame entirely.

Maybe the greatest gift I never gave

Saying goodbye gracefully,

Acknowledge, relinquish, perhaps forget-

Let time slowly consume what morsels I carry.

Follow the propulsion of our brief collision,

Embrace the distance, the imposed anonymity.

A goodbye to you is murder to me,

Smothering the last hope of who I could be.

Did I run away, or stay until I could forge

Someone better, someone valued more appropriately;

To stand side by side, not at odds.

One you could love fully, without pity,

Remorse, or frustration- not with lips,

Appetites, or eyes closed tightly,

But thought, heart, faith- My mistake

Has always been in my desires, shamefully,

And I have my mistakes, my expired hopes,

My dreams of us, and always childhood memories.

I have the knowledge I was cruel to remember,

Cruel to hold on, but kind enough to leave-

Leaving you to simpler loves, simpler times,

A simpler existence than any I could weave.

Simplicity brings deeper joys, uncluttered moments,

Unexamined, uninterrupted peace.

I was always the mess, always the liar,

Until the night I spoke truthfully.

Then a runaway, an ingrate,

A coward in the face of victory;

Victory incomplete. I find solace

In my unilateral obsessing.

Had you cared, had you stayed awake

One long night thinking of me,

How could I speak a word to you?

How could I bear to speak affectionately?

I’ve lived these long hours in your shadow,

Lived beneath you all these years between.

You, an anchored vessel of honor, and I

Adrift in the humiliation of tragedy.

You, a gem in your long lineage.

I, a vagabond with a past, but no history.

You, the prided son who stays.

I, the beggar orphan who flees.

With empty hands to offer you

Stains to mar your beauty-

It was right to leave, right you love

Never me.