viewingcamelot

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.