My fingers search for any sensation,
while my hands are tied up in a clock.
The little ones are waiting.
We must get back.
Can I savor you in the meantime?
I love nothing more than you.
Counting my lucky stars
you’re the one with me among the trees.
I don’t see any other life.
First two, then three,
then four, then five.
They are the stars in our sky.
For the love I feel for them
I can feel because of you.
But my Mari, my love,
I’ll always long for just you.
My fingers search for any sensation,
while my hands are tied up in a clock.
The little ones are waiting.
We must get back.
Can I savor you in the meantime?
I love nothing more than you.
Counting my lucky stars
you’re the one with me among the trees.
I don’t see any other life.
First two, then three,
then four, then five.
They are the stars in our sky.
For the love I feel for them
I can feel because of you.
But my Mari, my love,
I’ll always long for just you.
Never hide that reflection
that bounces sunlight
from your place in the sky
through the leaves down here,
pirouetting in the night wind.
I see you bright and clear.
Sensationally stunning,
even from a great distance,
but proximity reveals a depth
that knows no bounds.
You astound at every turn,
with a guarantee to grin,
but I promise you don’t owe
a single soul a single thing.
May you keep some sunlight
you gleam without effort,
hiding through the leaves
beyond the trees.
I didn’t see you there,
weaved behind
the thorny branches.
Their summer leaves,
green raisins
awaiting autumn alteration.
Wonderstruck,
I gaze in admiration
at the brilliance
in the sky,
enchanting
since the age of 5.
A potted plant.
Feet buried in the soil,
a fusion of life’s
chance-medley.
Preach it
to the choir.
And as I seek the sun,
I’m still grounded by the moon.
An unremitting prescription
to bring me back
home
to you.
He swings
left then right
at a rival revealed
behind a fictional fissure.
An unfair fight,
the 40 watt bulb
does little
to clarify.
Drops of rust
decorate the rim
that pinches the glass
just enough not to crack.
Just enough. Just enough.
A fracture only he detects,
the consequence of contrition.
In this windowless room,
it is his mind that shows attrition.
The dulling frame,
once auric and gleaming,
stands stained from age,
but steadfast in its stance.
And in its image,
a portrait of a man so broken.
He is split in half.
Split in half.
Perhaps the fork can feast
on this tightrope ‘tween the broken plates.
I stumble into the street,
hit with false ferocity.
A lesson in sight reading
where truth tangles with lies.
She is the teacher, I am the pupil,
studying every line.
A cinderblock wall
on the verge of collapse.
The floor begins to buckle
under the weight of this dance.
She is the anvil,
the sidewalk weed,
the rain that waters it,
the toxic seed.
Is this when the training wheels come off?
The moment you let me
cross the road on my own?
I’ll look both ways, I promise.
Left, right, and left again.
You left again.
Just when I thought
I could have you both to myself
after having shared you with strangers.
Oh, how I couldn’t share so much of me
because you were never really free.
Is this when I’m thrown in the pool
to sink or swim?
I never really did learn.
Too afraid to trust you to hold me
with my head just above the water.
I know I never made things easy.
And that never did change.
Too many years of being told I was strange, difficult, weird.
My only protectors
became the two I feared.
Scared of the judgement
I pushed the limits of defiance,
crossing lines just to cross them,
picking fights I’ll never win, but never lose.
All I wanted was to be.
Is this the real cutting of the cord?
The one that was wrapped around my neck when I was born?
Forever grateful you saved my life that day.
But I can no longer be sorry I live my life
my way.
And you asked me if,
indeed,
we were flying through the clouds.
And watching you light up,
indeed,
is what life is all about.
If only I could express
the way my shoulders tense
whenever I’m in your presence,
or the mere thought of having to be.
The pretending gets harder
because it requires me to,
yet again,
do something for you.
I lie awake with questions
I’ll never receive answers to,
hoping to not repeat your mistakes,
a challenge I must take.
It’s not the overbearing nature of your care,
nor the way no thought is left to spare.
It’s there mere fact that when I speak
it’s just a child you’ll always see.
Did I fear the water or my ability to swim?
Was I afraid of the heights or scared to sense safety up high?
Is my hesitation to branch out based on a fear of failure?
Or is this lack of faith a lack of trust in myself?