I spoke a mantra

Wrote it down,

I thought I had expelled you.

The hiccups paused,

I believed were done,

Until another gasp inhaled you.

How can this be

For any good?

I must find and burn your altar.

How have ancient

Dreams withstood

These years they do not alter.

Why won’t they falter

Like I do?

All these dreams

They still persist

Even after my crude exorcism.

It’s so unseemly

They exist

Somewhere in reflex or optimism,

Behind my reams,

My pen, my wrist,

My highest tenacity or masochism.

Working it out again,

These kinks, these sins,

These ancient flaws.

These lulls in growth

Frustrate hope, I loathe

Aimless introspection.

Some new sunrise

Break new, break now, surprise

My darkened thoughts

With light for the day

Sight, the right way

To face the morning

Because I’ve forgotten it,

yet again…

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.

I dance on this hard surface,
And the equal and opposite
Dances back on me.

I absorbed some different shade,
And what reflects to you
I cannot see.

But I taste distinctive hope,
The sweet salt-water pucker
Of forgiven memory.

And when I am alone
With all my years,
I dance free.

I can try to restrain, to retreat,
From this familiar roam,
But not all ruts are carved defeat.
Maybe all roads do lead home
If you travel long enough.

A preacher puts pressure
On all the weakest seams,
But not all stressors
Conspire to redeem,
And I miss the traveling.

In our broken best
Our innocence compounded
To forge a distinctive crest
We stay astounded
At what stays home.

Maybe we are broken,
But what we have seen
Leaves folly unspoken,
And only the obscene
Would speak to it.

Yet arrogance glistening,
Marinating the core of man,
Always speaking, never listening,
Defers on some master plan
Justice in conquest.

Humility waits for zeal
To wound itself, the limp
Salvation in motion, reveals
What the inner imp
Took for himself.

How am I to explain these things
To ears that only hear themselves?
There is no possible conversing
When you’re labeled on a shelf
Before you begin.

Nearly noon, but my little ones
Flounce about with nightgowns on
And whisper secrets urgently
While giggling out their symphonies.
They work together with tiny hands
Building tiny, fanciful, foreign lands
Of talking ponies, bears, and beasts,
Cooking huge, fantastic feasts.

All the wild world outside these walls
Spins and misses the best view of all:
Two small girls in tangled tresses
Playing in their sleeping dresses.

Long and familiar, these nights arrive,
And I know the morning sun will sting.
Tomorrow I will fail to do, fail to thrive,
Because this night brings

Wide-eyed wakefulness.

It isn’t from fear or discontent,
Just mindfulness aware, satisfied
To let my sleep dissent
From the ruling rest that gratifies

Weary flesh.