10.20.2021

You've no idea how

    sharp the sounds approaching

my heart from your

    feeling are true and

escaping your mouth to batter

    the tenuous bonds of our

time together is waning and

    that's no tragedy

would've been to not try

        to let each other drift apart

as if those cosmic months

    never happened

would my life be better

    or worse it doesn't 

        really matter

we're here now and doing

    what we can to stay

        afloat and together

but...

10.17.2021 #4

I don't know what I believe anymore

    an empty vessel drifting 

unmoored from the earth that

            restrained by reassured

nothing more than a disoriented mass

    of synaptic maybes and

the constant pit in my stomach

    the heaviness of chest holding

    back a beating heart

    running, racing from fear

from the fear of knowing 

that there are only so many

    more of these beats to give

Take me as I take you

            give unto the other with

            complete trust nothing more

        than the self imposed maybes you

            can't ever fucking square.

We're all just so many hoping

        creating knowing that we

            don't, won't, can't

bear to face each other in the 

            clarity of that light allowing

        forcing a choice to move one

            way and not the other 

                seconds to waste belong

            to a past where this

                kind of shit was novel.

10.17.2021 #3

What are these weapons we

            carry with us the inconceivable 

death accompanying life

    our weapons pointed directly

at hearts stabbing in the dark

    and bleeding on one another

because we know we can

            because we know we must

                        because we know that

times cares not for how much

            we know or love or 

                        hope.

I love unreservedly

            but I live cloistered 

in a cage of my own design

    to be at odds with each moment

        of each breath, I am

against it all and myself

            most of all

Is there peace to be had in this

            lifetime 

Can balance be found before

    acceptance can be catalyst

Can be perfect; a broken

    heart hopefully not ossified

    frozen in between beats

and unable to pump this

    life into warmth and 

sunrising moments where

feeling isn't just first but is

    only and completely and 

    trusted as I do the next 

breath will fill lungs and heart

and brain firing, mis-wired

    though it may be at times

Resonance with the abstract

    made real and running because

it is alien and unknown and 

the mis-wiring keeps clarity at

    bay keeps understanding the other

        nothing more than a wish

a hope that one day the 

    churning maybes against which 

I strain to breath may

    finally relent finally

an understanding and more

    why can't we accept ourselves

and the other's    

            expectations unmet

and the overwhelming sense 

    of nothing more than disappointment 

nothing more or less than balloon 

    bursting and kid's dreams failing

to become reality because

we live too much apart

from what actually is and 

    is not this enough to

try, to love

            may not be enough.

10.17.2021 #2

Please don't go

            but you're the one walking

away from a love collapsing

            in on itself

as a star

            the heaviness grows

as the gravity of doubt pulls

                air from our lungs

an exhausted gasping, hoping

        some change will bring

a new light to the space

    surrounding us

                huddled together

in a darkness emanating from two

    broken hearts held together 

by will and denial and love

Are we no more than 

    those flickering lights 

reckless toward the horizon

        until extinguished?

Knowing that the source is

            still there but unseen

            and forgotten in time

only allowed a place amongst

            memories collecting dust

    and piled upon by the 

too long days, too distracted

            too fast

10.17.2021 #1

There's a darkness hanging

            over us

    like the blue grey sun

heavy beneath the clouds rolling in

            on salty wet and pulled

            from an ocean impossible

to know

            like each other

impossible to see into the 

            other's heart

all we do is hope that

    the colors are complementary

            that the lines a

        harmony made

Deepest blue ocean horizon

            cutting the red orange

        sky by a third and

            yet

        somehow each air, water

            sun, sand; silhouettes

The long fingers of our creation

            reaching out to just barely

breathing toward the infinite

I watch one sunset

    with tears in my eyes

        love in my heart

    her hand in mine

        and a path into an

            unknown future charted.

    

oblique (10.16.2021)

 Why do I write so obliquely

            finding it impossible

to stand square against 

            my truth and just

put it on paper

            say in words

                express oneself, absolutely

            and finally.

Maybe its the way a 

            minor chord tripping 

on these hard wired

            emotional triggers

    eclipses the plainness of 

            our banal truth

That I don't know

            Why I want

                to pull it

                    all down.

In the coldness of uncertainty

            in the unsatisfying reality 

    of this stage of life

where there are fewer sure

    things than ever before

the light cast obliquely through

    the prism of experience

        and language

paints the picture in

            a way to mollify

    to scratch the itch that

eternity refuses to

An inexhaustible unknown 

            an impossibly choice

                an absurd reality.

Every truth is individual

            because there are no other

                truths.

We're all, always on the same

    very offshoot bound by

        an impenetrable dark

only possible to know after

            the wanting to know

subsides

        but then nothing matters

is nothing, is no more

        us or anything resembling

a possible knowing now

We are ghosts, shadows

        we are skeletons

    wearing human costumes

        and playing dress up

inhabiting lives we guess at

    from watching others

            knowing better than me

Letting each other in on

            the joke

is the greatest kindness we

    can give to those

beating hearts with

    whom we share

our disappearing minutes

and she, body next to

    mine

        flesh so alive and 

            lovely

stirring in me a primordial

    reaching out for communion

        seen and unseen

        darkness of night or 

            burning sun I want to

be entirely other than

       only myself 

Creating one new thing

    neither she nor I

        but more and so

much less

            indelibly

    and irrevocably less

            than the longing

for an understanding

we were expressly designed

    to never reach.

ghost ship (10.16.2021)

 And which port does it

    find a bottomless harbor

within which floating

    field in place as if

        tethered.

    But the anchor has

                            not dropped

It remains clutched tight

                            against this chest

unwilling to the vulnerability

        of stasis

            of connection

                to earth

of the denial of

    the waterborne truth

    that as tide and wind

        so to, I.

In this unnatural harbor

    the tide neither coming in

        nor going out

    the sails fall limp

        spun and knotted around

    my masts

                    unable to

outrun this ghost ship 

    of memory

        of longing

    of confused and contradicted

motivating choices

that must be made

                    must finally

drop anchor

                    or

set sail.

I need both.

    want neither.

Am hounded by those 

    black sails

on the further horizon

Impossible to outrun

    given infinite

        wind &

            time

It never relents

            It never tires

It will never fade into

    the unknown grey

            mist of lost

                memories

It is a truth from which

    I will never

        escape.

do not forget (10.16.21)

 this
Setting sun
    setting memories affixed
    to past lives
    only to be remembered

Once finally you leap 

        from present to future

leaving the past

    the postcard melting sun

        sky on fire

impossible reality moments

The rest of humanity, nothing

    but silhouettes

&

She &

I

    holding on

        keeping the golden

            hour shining from even

                below the depths

Of inevitability.

Eventually, to rise

        Again.

both, but apart

    as one silhouette in foreground

        and one in background

but both

only shadows

Only rough sketches cast

    dark against the brightness

        of a sun

            carrying on beyond

Understanding.

Is it possible

    to ever

        be saved?

By another or by self?

One, more likely than the other

    but, 

        Neither are likely.

Playing the percentages

            leaning against that

                asymptote

                    & never quite

finding the origin.

What a cruel joke.

The precision of random lives

    distributed all the same

given enough bodies and time

    knowing with a certainty that

the house holds all the cards

    and knowing forever how

forever looks

for a single point of 

        viewing the best-case

as only one case out of 

    an infinite

impossibility to

            fall beyond expectations

intentions or otherwise

            the precision of the

pattern wins out with

        Universal truth.

    This is how the pieces

            fall

Some land upright

                others

                        collapse

but none ever reach

        none ever touch

                none ever know

    the infinite

        the source

            the truth.