I've been meaning to think of you
but I've been caught up in my own miseries.
Tragic, sorrowful, so unfortunate.
This winter chill is burrowing
me further inside my mind.
Your rough but tender hands,
the scratch of your beard
across my chin,
the sound of your slow groan
as you grab my waist--
I've been meaning to give thought
to these memories.
To bring them back to life.
What I'm trying to say is,
I've been meaning to return
your love.
But this life, this sadness,
has so overwhelmed me.
Has taken me by the hand
and dragged me through fields
of both briars and brambles,
tearing at my soft skin.
It makes it so hard to love
that which simultaneously hurts.
A night wrapped up in bed
with you has knocked
at my mind's door,
but I haven't had the warmth
to open it.
I've left you out in the cold.
Winter comes and love recedes.
Winter comes and madness pleads.
At night I remember
how we used to lay,
two as one.
But these nights
are filled with self and self-doubt,
an inability to recall
the sense of deep connection
with another being.

In the end,
I knew the beginning.
Only then could I recall
the joy and ease
of a child's existence.
So pure
so unhinged
so far removed
from all that is chaos.
I felt so cheated
to have slipped
unknowingly
out of beauty
into madness.
The adult envies the infant,
forever wrapped in a blanket
of comfort and warmth,
a being radiating
with unconditional gratitude
for all hands
that touch,
for all voices
that sing,
for all tastes
that satiate,
for all scents
that stir up love,
and for all eyes
that instill
depths of knowing
beyond age.
Oh, wise infant,
remember your early years,
recall the joy of dependence.
Forever cherish
those who delivered you
into this world,
however harsh or forgiving
it may be.