He is looking away
he is looking at something
beyond you
as if doing so will erase regret
as if doing so will erase you
when he turns to you
he says I’m sorry
but what he means is
this was a mistake
when you turn to him
you say goodbye
but what you mean is
I’m correcting my mistakes
Aug 19, 2011
Aug 19, 2011 at 3:42 PM UTC
I feel like I’m dying,
you said, and I wanted to say
you’ve been dead for years.
But you seemed so sad then,
the deep-seeded kind
of sadness with no real root,
and it must be harrowing,
I thought, to be mocked by a life
that so little resembled anything
you’d designed, to shrink
into the shadow of a life
that had begun without you.
And so I did not mention
how the light in your eyes
had waned and withered
or how you would always be
longing because you had nothing
to long for. Instead, I said
you’re not alone,
and hoped it was enough.
Aug 15, 2011
Aug 15, 2011 at 12:42 PM UTC
In those quiet moments
stolen between pockets
of swollen sunlight
you released me
from the darkest terrors
of my imagination.
The broken dreams of a broken man.
...
You told me once
that the heart’s greatest vulnerability
is memory. I have known too well
how time can turn
a gray moment lilac.
...
In the biting breeze
of your departure
you left me
grasping at the handle
of a door that closed
too quickly.
One decision can decide a life.
...
After all this time
what I remember most is love,
etched into the deepest crevices
of my soul behind all the ways
I’ve learned to spell loss.
Jul 31, 2011
Jul 31, 2011 at 8:40 AM UTC
and now the shade
is creeping in
and now I can see
that I loved you
too late
and now there is no shelter
in the feathers
of your hummingbird hands
and now your words
can no longer
eliminate distance
and now despair
is lashing
at the heel
and now I’m only reading
shadow in the hollow
pools of your eyes
Jul 25, 2011
Jul 25, 2011 at 7:34 PM UTC
That summer the sky was hedged in
by clouds, as if to stave off emptiness.
When trees unfolded their fragrant bones
you were enveloped in the lavender
scent of solitude and you could not shed
the bitterest memories.
You learned truths
that seemed unkind:
the world is insincere
and you will never be beautiful.
It is best to care for nothing.
To dream of lines and endings.
It was then that you noticed
the contradiction inherent in hinges,
how a door can blossom
and wither in the same breath.
How it all depends
on the will of a hand.
Jul 23, 2011
Jul 23, 2011 at 10:27 AM UTC
In time you will see
that you wanted
everything too much.
You have asked too much
of this world.
But soon you will learn
that things appear most beautiful
when viewed from a distance,
and you will find no comfort
in illusions of closeness.
You will find that the reflection
in the window
clouds the promise
you expected to find
in some vaster field of sky.
Jul 22, 2011
Jul 22, 2011 at 7:21 PM UTC
The danger came
because you did not
expect it .
You thought it was over.
But this was how
it always worked, how
you were always most vulnerable
in a state of security, how
you could not sense
the precariousness
of your position
until the tide was rushing
toward you, the salt pulsing
through the wound
that had only just
begun to heal.
Jun 19, 2011
Jun 19, 2011 at 1:10 AM UTC
It arrived in silence.
The sound came after
the suffering,
after the pain had nested quietly
within the cold cage
of bone,
after the heart was brimming
with the burden
of you.
There could be no resolution
because the beginning
was broken
and so our story
could never
bloom.
May 21, 2011
May 21, 2011 at 1:33 AM UTC
but suppose it’s not a river
suppose instead you are laying
down bricks one by one
and with each new brick
all the old ones stack up
behind you to form a wall
so you can see all the bricks
that got you here -
the city you chose
and the love you didn’t -
but you can never return
you can only gaze at the choices -
the ones you’re glad you made
and the ones you wish you hadn’t -
and sometimes it was not even your own
hand but that of another and it seems
unfair that such blocks must remain
that their permanence is not yours
to claim but if you stare here too long
you will never recognize the clearing
behind you and all the places still left
to travel so where will you go from
here?
May 17, 2011
May 17, 2011 at 7:17 PM UTC
We did not always feel such insistent tugging
on the sleeve and so we did not remember
to cherish time until the moment had passed,
the memory marooned,
its breath grown short within
the parentheses of its existence.
Apr 30, 2011
Apr 30, 2011 at 11:36 AM UTC