need/want/ont-

Spending the day

Alone with the shadows

Of others and history

On the screen and in the sunshine

Passed before me, some

Crossing paths

I can feel the glance and I'm

Afraid to meet

Those feelings or these choices

I'm unwilling or unable to

Make something positive of this

Distance

To grow

Apart(?)

I love you and don't want

To fly away and above into the mist

Alone

But I will

I don't need you

I want us.

We fit.

We share something so deep

That my words don't have any shine

There's nothing clever to say

The feelings are unvarnished

Real
of itself

And I don't want to let go

Or make the decision to move on (apart).

I know I may have to.

faith

she lost her faith

in me, at some point

I'm sure I pushed it to one side

or, being less

severe

Maybe, she thought I was

other than I am

Meant for something more

more than what

is both transparent and opaque

more than trying to live honestly

and openly

and unreservedly embracing the

next morning seeing

But, too, playing a role to support as

thinking was required

other times, failing to see and

it's just the imperfection

of living

I stand, honestly

and unashamed of my trying

it was without reservation

without looking over the present

the person in my presence

I was not, am not

looking for better options

Were the expectations too high

did I, would i

have been better off

no

I have tried, have not always

succeeded

success when it matter most

is hardest

I ache, thinking too much about

what we're losing

for no reason

There's time and space to grow

and not throw away the

side by side, facing the world

knowing the heart beating next

will always be there

yes, ee

Everyone said, ‘I’m sure she’s been true…’

To thine own self

How hard do we try

Or how close do we come

To that hazy future

Imagined, but unable to reach

How much of that inability

Is holding too narrowly to one course

Pursuing nothing more than mirage

As drowning in the waters at our feet

Until submerged and

Starting a new life

We are reinvented

Not so much

Maybe reincarnated

Still a version of the same basic model

Perhaps more knowing or understanding

Always still trying

Or

Does this all mean, I haven’t

Learned

Anything of the world

And myself next to it

Occasionally within it

Comes a time

When choosing is the way

Since feeling is first; yes ee

But after comes the

Will

To do or not

To hold on by letting go

And as we grow to fill the space

Left by absence

Do We become more

Or only, do I?

Does she

Can she

Remember the love we shared

I’m still tending the fire

Letting the embers smolder

I remember the inferno of

The other

i almost wrote you

another of those
long and winding
lost somewhere in the middle
all raw
i get and am; a living
wire, charged with a current
unseen
kinds of letters
never quite falling on ears
able to hear
as they sound coming from these
fingertips

of my own, but
reaching
always seeking
the connection
jury-rigged and duct taped
because the wire's too
hot, even
as we turn toward another
greywinter wind

it always is, will be
even as leaves become
wet earth growing
a green gleaming again

the wire is fed
a source
unstoppable and
of itself
of myself
of our shared
time, here
and there
in a future
as they all are
filled with preambling
butterflies and neverstopping
knowing and wondering
but evermoving
like the heart's beating
and bouncing and living and trying

moving faster than most

i recognize, of myself
not so much what the
mirror reflecting years
and some selfsame idea
of what

I am;
or used to be;
or will become;

glass, given enough time
moves
as nature
as gravity, and the heaviness that I know
weighs down
but just as gravity is given
so is the weight I carry
inside

even ever, the most sunshining happiness
(and it is) because of you
I must always carry the weight of my
nature

of someone else is impossible to know
to fully understand
you try to carry it
but you can't
and I can't; the weight of your
nature

we, each
together, but solitary
must author our own designs
and know our own
natures
and carry them
together

it’s not quite sadness

balanced; teetering on the narrow

unknowing, other than sunrising 

somewherethere above and behind

you really have to look

most mornings

i’m locked in, but

the key is mine;

the lock of my own construction

having agency over this time

and sillyfeeling, this weight that

never gets lighter

like the days sometime do

03:20:10

this (    )
is, for you
they always are, will be
as men of words and means;
& abilities to arrange just so, in the light
and suddenly seeing
so much clearer than I
ever could

but, i like countless before
endeavor to translate the
untranslatable
this love: for you
and they for theirs
every word, letter, intention&glance
is a love poem
this poetry can save the world

it flows and swirls, in (sometimes) great
crashing waves &storming
incessant and falling against so many rocks
breaking apart and coming together, whole
again
still and serene, and
tranquility never known, until
known

it lives and breathes
endures&thrives
droughts and floods
it connects (  us  )
&guiding, flowing through timespace
some, times hip to hip, hand in hand
others distant; but always in sight
of you(me)
and connected in this great
ocean, infinite

just as the poem
I'm always writing
like this one
for you.

coming home to you

I've slept
in fits and shaking falls
fighting the pull to give
in, or up, or over
to whatever lies on the
the other
side--

[of the bed

is yours
and always kept, only
for you]

--under so many
even little
as to puzzle out
how does Santa come to us
if there's no chimney?

36 years &
somewhere near 30
`homes`
were never any more than
temporary relief from
out there, amongst those
illusions of choice

is that all this is
deterministic contingencies
ifs&thens ad infinitum
a clear enough day, with conditions
favorable
able to see forward and behind
the beginning and end
already played out
predestined

so, then
how does this-

if i can
can i
grow
and persevere and be
patient

and avoid the inevitable if--then of the
relentless neversettled churning
it's too much
it exhausts
it wears down

the space beyond these
walls
does enough toward
that end

all I ever wanted
was
coming home to you

i missed some part

of growing up, where
you get sort of calloused too;
those things, when you're 23
that make the sun rise and fall
are supposed to weigh less
as you see more sun rises
and falls

nothing's really getting easier

I love my love with all I am, will
ever be

and still, or perhaps because
of that
and the always growing number of days risen and
falling
I'm scared

I am disposable.
Am I?

has the neversettled dulled the experience
is this how only to manage me after so long
am I nothing but a grindstone, wearing those closest
down
fastest

the fearlessness from nothing
to lose
is lost
I've got everything
to lose

All I need
I have

everything

ten years hence

and so little
progress has been made
but is no more than
tail chasing
a sickness unto

what ought and what
is
or was
or will be

ten years and still
late night listening
and hiding from the
outside
it's so noisy
without them

holding alight
this is what I am
have done
have become

so tired
of twirling the maybetruths
between the gaps we tumble
and I worry

I'll be forgotten

10, thirty, 50 years
hence
and you
there reading will know
the spirit bows
but never completely breaks
as neither does the body
this reality ever become

an ought.