We’ve weathered new roads,
And old habits
Somehow coming through
Clean of the savage

We staked ourselves
In each other’s good,
Planting childlike loyalty
Wherever we stood.

We built years,
Brick by brick, day by day
With repetitive kindness,
And the ability to stay.

We mangled our road;
I couldn’t share you
You forgot me
Drunk on the new.

I have loved you
Your silent surface of sea
Covering your tumult
And your peace.

I’ve held too tightly,
And shoved too hard
Desperate to grasp you
Alone and unguarded.

I’ve been a savage;
Sabotaging our clasped hands
For the hope of embrace
To sate my demands.

I’ve been afraid
Our hearts would wander
Where the other could not follow
Our years abandoned and squandered.

I’ve been wrong;
Hastening the end of night,
Impatiently breaking in
Where I wasn’t invited

You weren’t there
To set me right.

It has been a long winter.
The dried and dead hide in our burrows
All iced over with the frosty fingers
Scratching thoroughly

Through and between us.

Now winter is dying.
Our long, cold bones are thawing,
And the ice that ossified us
Washes by us into the gnawing grave

Taking our strength with it.

I have intended to live open-handed
My relaxed spine saluting heaven
And bowing low to no man.

Clutching no sorrow, no regret, no horror
Longer than a snowflake on an extended palm:
A thing I shan’t own- a thing to borrow.

Time is haggard, a poor braggart
Incurring debts he cannot cover,
Ever gambling as he staggers on.

The world is in arrears and cannot repay
Hope for fear, love for hate, or youth for the years
It has squandered away.

The depth in years of these sorrows
Brim up behind my eyes
But they will not spill in quantities
To cleanse what I despise.

I wonder how numerous the lies
Hiding under wet stones
Along the path of our timeline
We walked together; we walk alone.

In what else I could not condone,
Could you not refrain?
And when these stones are overturned
What else can still remain?

How I yearn for lightness,
The unflinching faith
That lifts the unblemished face
To smile at the fists of time.

I recall laughter
Bubbling from deep soul,
Nothing to dampen, nor console
Boundless joy.

My days got old.
My thoughts, so heavy,
Watch children skip steady
On feet of hope and wonder.

I am atrophied
Or else I would sing,
Dance, lose everything
To skip in lightness again.

Suspended on the rock face,
Forever dripping to the ground
Waterfalls cascaded in static pace
Lingering on soundless
While the men behind their barbecues
Pink fingers protruding from crisp gloves,
Knock snow from their white, tented roofs
In the smoke flailing and floating above
And down below sits the drink
Whitecaps turned to icecaps
On the rocks, on the brink
Of one immense nightcap.
Something old, something new,
And the rest caught betwixt
Frozen still, and frozen through
Forever fixed

Inside a motionless, wintry mix.