What I have here
Is real, is good,
Is more than I should,
Above what I feared.

What I’ve held all these years
I’ve carried alone
I knew, on my own
My phantom wasn’t so dear.

Now I know the need is near
To cut the suture,
Kill the hope, free the future,
Burn the path clear.

To whom shall I confess this sin?
Who could understand why I, initially,
Preserved this love so artificially?
Why I persevered since then?

I swallowed the idea of you, when
All the world was lost, was dead,
The hope of you somehow fed
All I hoped could be, had been.

You trumped the worst of men
With quiet strength, faith, loyalty.
You were my royalty.
I would have died again, and again,

Death, separation, goodbye,
The best I could give, or you could receive,
Falling muted as an autumn leaf
Caught in the wind’s last sigh.

One hundred public admissions
Confessions, contrition,
Professions, transitions,
Hesitant at first, but resistance
Gives way to persistence-

An outward existence
From quiet submissions.

I type the keys, each letter rings
As piano notes all in ebony,
And I sing

I sing along.

I’ve walked the stanzas, stalked
Definitions until I balked
And revised

And refused.

This weeping language, seeping
Into all, still keeping me
Enthralled

And grounded.

My dead playmates, but I read
All the things they said
While they lived,

And I agreed.
I agreed.

These ancient guttered streets,
Worn signs and pot holes,
Hard to follow with childish feet
Dangerous to patrol,

Spread out into the great unknown
A mission, a compulsion
Tangled with sticks and stones,
Each step its own propulsion.

Running once, and fleeing,
I’ve learned these roads now.
Enemies near and seething
Fall back silenced, disavowed.

Sometimes I still stumble
These roads have deep ruts,
But the nature of the humble
Admits falling, gets up,

Keeps walking.

Time
Finger furled miser,
Stealing, drinking years
Leaving them no wiser.
Ruthless crime.

Time
You promised humanity
You would heal all wounds.
Instead you feed vanity
Then undermine.

Time
Ruler of ruins,
But you will end.
What will you do then,
Be reassigned?
Begin again
Open-handed.

Open your eyes and gaze
The world is your ancestor.
You regain in essays
What you lost in vespers.

Open your throat and scream.
A hundred voices echo back.
Stand upon your reams,
Scream until it cracks.

Take this thought and live
Alone and wildly free.
Eat through your missives,
Become the escapee

You were born to be.