While I could not cry in front of you,
I cried once for you – in front of strangers.
But then again it could have just been
the vodka, or life’s regrets – perhaps
it was only allergies that caused
such a commotion of compulsion.
Who knows what God’s thinking in
these rare moments of humility.
I suppose we all must pay our dues
for living and dying and breathing
and trying. Who knows but God,
the devil and that damn song
that keeps playing in my head?
I sit in this bookstore
where I feel detached
from the young and
too young to be the old.
Miles away, memories
come in with the fog
and rest their toes at
the edge of the water.
The only promise of life
is the sound of fury
from beyond what
only the lost can see.
I can only hope my
ghost is always there,
walking the shoreline
and dreaming, neither
young nor old, but
timeless in this melody
that never leaves us.
In my yellow polka dots, I had
no notion I didn’t match and no
idea you didn’t care. God we were
so young then – and reckless,
just not reckless enough.
Some ghosts are not dead but are whispers in the wind from the one we lost saying, “Come find me again.”
Mostly misplaced, indifference displaced, the world and its lovers dance without haste.
When you feel like the rules are different for everyone but you, and the world keeps changing except for the view, close your eyes and hear the sounds from that place long ago that spoke to your youth.
When nothing turns out like the dream you chased but never followed through, and it seems your spent hopes and layered dimensions are all but wasted on someone you once knew, close your mind to life’s whimsical wisdom that only altered your youth, to find again the one voice that always spoke the truth.
It’s the silence we feel in the noisiest of towns, the vibrant fragrances we taste in the dullest of mouths. It’s knowing when something is too much or just not enough. It’s beyond our hearts and in our guts. It’s a love we left on some beach for a path we followed but in which we never believed. It’s knowing where you are is a place you don’t belong and where you aren’t is a place you’ll never go.
When you feel as though it’s unfinished and over at the same time and something that took forever is done in the blink of an eye, never forget who you were for awhile before you figured out who others were not.
On teardrops and rose petals,
I come to you, slipping
through your window, just
past the morning dew.
I touch you with a whisper,
kiss you with my heart,
an echo from the past,
a promise in the dark. Your
body moves alongside me,
beyond the years and
past the many miles
in this place where first
kisses burn eternal
and pure love
cannot be denied.
