Poems of lust, regret and the "Fever called living."
If only I could write your name
along side our sin,
condemning you into the shame
you abandoned me in.
But the worm of retribution
can swear no loyalty
and the toll of its infection
will eventually
be taken from the innocent.
Remorse is poisonous
– how I hope yours is sufficient
to blight his forgiveness.
My helpless rage has run its course,
leaving this bitter yield:
a dream of your suspended corpse
above the Potter’s Field.
Let us elude reality,
if only for a moment,
yet revel in the secrecy
of this sanctum
till its consigned to memory,
or the roots have drunk our blood
and we’re known by these words only.
If my father was a stranger
and met the man I am today,
he would swear I was the mirror
of a past he had locked away.
I would have gone anywhere
and done anything
for a chance to talk to you.
That was years ago
– back when I used to think
chances were infinite.
Now I do what I can to catch a glimpse
as you walk past.
I think you’re avoiding me now.
The clock strikes 5
and I don’t see you by the bench
where we reconnected a few years ago.
I wish you understood
the pain of being avoided
for a simple glance.
Not a word nor an approach.
Not even a smile.
Maybe you knew my stomach turned
when our eyes locked.
How many years have I wasted
trying to be someone else?
How many years have I wasted
wishing I had taken a chance?
I just want to change.
At what point did I become
the stranger in the mirror?
At what point did I become
what I tried so hard to avoid?
I just wanted to change.
But when I crossed that bridge
I tried not to look back.
And when I crossed that bridge
I burned it behind me.
I was never who I wanted to be
and I lost myself along the way.
I was never who I wanted to be
and now I know I never will.
Crawling, slipping, scrambling
through this forest of memories
in fierce and frantic searching
for the path I should have taken.
I think of our time together
as a book I could not finish.
For all these questions without answer
(which cannot end a final chapter)
have left my mind with this one wish:
you were still a beautiful stranger.
This bond will break, it cannot bend.
Hold fast- I could not stop
the beginning of our end.
Who is to blame? We both had doubt.
But voiceless fear is an open wound
and silent answers sold us out.
You are not dead to me my dear
– yet if I feel no life with you,
then you’re the death of me I fear.
But I became your every breath!
So could I truly call it living
if I left you to certain death?
Blood is pouring from the suture.
These broken hearts we stitched together
bleed and stain our every future.
Who is to blame? We both knew change.
The children we were died in our arms
– the face in the mirror was strange.
This bond will break, so leave it be.
It was made for a different life,
and from that life we now are free.
I have no choices begging question
and no regret of either kind.
I knew the end one kiss could destine
for the friendship we left behind.
Years and miles lost to each other,
we soon lost our minds to lust that night.
But morning was painfully sober
as I watched you crawl back to the light.
Our innocence was not stolen.
Our innocence was not lost.
It was the birthright gladly given
to stay hunger at any cost.
What a wretchedness it is to crave
all the fruit you never tasted.
Do you think this hunger you can stave
– was your father’s wisdom wasted?
