Don't Matter Most

I showed you my soul once.

 I just kept shaking loose all the broken pieces of my past until all my pros and cons were in a pile of words before you. As I looked into your soft brown eyes they glimmered in the moon light and panic raced through my mind. The awareness that I have set before another human all my vulnerabilities is clear and I am emotionally naked. I surrendered the keys to my barbed wire heart. I once showed you my fortified soul, and you saw something beautiful.

I broke my honor once for those soft brown moon lit eyes. I never meant to, you know. From time to time I hear still the echo of fractured words and noble intentions.  The scraping sound they make is as  steel on stone sharpening a sacrificial blade.  Firsthand I bore witness to the inferno of  a mans anger.  Peering into it reflected the death of my respect in the eyes of a mentor. Innocent steps on a gradual slope allowed me to slip beneath the crushing weight of loss. Of you, of us, of him. I lost my position as a teacher in the community.  I know the sound the heart makes when a man’s honor is broken.  

The years have been rough.   I live with the knowledge that I could not be there when you needed me. My mind, such a vial thing ,recalls all the times you hugged me and whispered to my chest that you felt safe in my arms.  I remember saying that I could face ANYTHING with you with me, the words were adorned with gold leaf as they flowed from my heart- to ashes as they escaped my lips.   I remember God reducing me to NOTHING… so that through the fire and the hammer, and the water and the heat, maybe I could someday be a righteous man again. Over the years I learned the most important lesson of my life, That I cannot have a character of righteousness. I have only a character of selfishness, or His character.  My essence is one of self-reliant failure.  The honor I hold, the honor that I have reclaimed, is the honor that He has reformed through broken melted pieces.  The honor I have is that of a man who has sacrificed his own desire for the one that he loves.  I died. I died to what I was. I died to become something new. I died to become a new man.  I see you still sometimes, in my dreams mostly. You would come to visit me or I would search for you and we’d trade a glance or hold a smile or share a laugh before the world came crashing down over us morphing into a nightmarish hellscape.  When I’d wake I'd tell myself not remember. This dead man contends with the man of life that I strive to be.  I speak to God about these dreams, as I pray for your safety, your righteousness, your happiness.  I tell Him about how you’re still in here. Somedays I ask Him to make it better, some days I ask to forget. Each day I wake up and muddle through trying to do without remembering the way my heart felt with you.  Some are easier than others. “ Forget the one that never lied to you. Forget how time stood still when she used to dance. Don’t remember.  Force it out of your mind."
Theory versus practicality you know. 

I write all these words because I know you can’t read them. I write all these words because they are all things that should be said. So I say them, obscurely.  You’ve either forgotten me, or you remember me bitterly as the man that failed you. That man that didn’t protect you in the desert where all kinds of unforeseen dangers are lurking to break a people apart. I stack these words in a pile of all the things I cannot say. Of all the things I might have. Useless words that don’t change anything, in a place where I love you isn’t enough.  I’ll tighten my laces, and I’ll go get some air when you’re near. I’ll bite my tongue and run.  God help me I’ll choke on the words that don’t matter most, like I’m sorry, and I love you, and forgive me, and goodbye. 

August Ides

 I can feel the familiar tides of the August ides pulling at my soul. 

The darkened ends of loved ones and friends caught in the undertow. 

The sharpened knives of old & familiar lives weigh heavy in heart

Augusts knuckles rap the faintest tap of old pains black and sharp.

Daybreak

 The sunrise dawns blushing hues full of promise like a new lovers kiss.

The light traces down the hillside of its sleeping inhabitants with the trees pulled up to the shoulders.

 The passionate skies gaze lovingly across the moment, holding its breaths.

The day will have its say and the dusk will strain the aftermath of hurried times.

 For the moment the violence of night has retreated, and the harshness of day has yet set.

 The sunrise cradles love devoid of fury and all its pure truths unadorned by spin.

 Daybreak is for lovers, even those souls unaccompanied.

At Bended Light

 When light bends it creates distortion, and I believe the same for truth and beauty. Truth stands intact independently of the minds perception of it. Having been unable to break the seed, some have turned to salting the top soil.  Truth in of itself is no longer kept as beauty. Instead, the idea that two or more opposing ideas must be measured with equil weight and justification is pushed forward. This has punctured our culture in every way humanity used to be inspired. Art is seldom lauded for technique or skill, but for grotesque pungencey. Architecture has passed from marble and pilliar monuments of tribute to the ethics of manual labor, and has been replaced by stucco muted buldings resembling the wasps hive. They're no longer buldings that testify of forethought through the age, they are to remind us that we are drones. Beauty is under siege as what it means to be a father or a mother is washed out and undermined by the ludicrous notion that gender is a subjective construct. Being a man used to stand for something, and being a lady was a title of noble praise. The power of graces and honors would inspire us to greatness. These days we find no use for beautiful ways, people, things. We've forsaken their purpose. As we burn our empires down, with mouths full of ashes we roll in the blood of what we once were.

Rythem of the Aquanaut

 
You’re with someone that over time becomes the air you breathe. Suddenly the loss of them is drowning you. Like an aquanaut you begin to explore the deep depths to understand the whys of both yourself and blame. In time you can breathe again, with your own lungs and a real sense of clarity. You inhale freedom, and exhale solitude. You inhale isolation, and you exhale longing. Breathings a rhythm tied to the beat of the heart. Life is music that way, steady drums crush you and love blows through the holes making a melodic tune.  Everyone I’ve ever loved I love in different ways. They become fading baselines.  Ambient sounds of laughter creating pressure over time.  Love is a weapon against darkness in us. Love makes us defenseless before another. The waves of laughter turn to dripping sobs before they crystalize in silence.   In the silence and solitude we fill our lungs with air, learning to breathe and stumble and stand. We scream but we are just one again.  We laugh as one again. We walk as one again, wading out to some new emotion, beyond the safety of the rift,  to lose our breath once more captivated by the same old songs.

Poema di un Campo

 My heart is a field of sown ghosts
Spirits rustling through the grass grown tall 
The muddied bodies of everyone I've ever left linger here 
Growing into faded memories. 

In the shaded trees of context and the thicketed thorns of circumstance, 
My heart is an entangled field of ghosts.
My love is a graveyards somberness under an open starlit sky. 
A garden of natural paths untread and forgotten. 

I am a ghost sown in the field of my own heart
A regenerate bloom of self destruction.