Out of the night that covers me,
      Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
      For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
      I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
      My head is ******, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
      Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
      Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
      How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
      I am the captain of my soul.

Dedicated to the one who'd turned the table.*

I spent two hours
Trying to make you savor me,
When I can’t stomach myself.
I can abuse myself though
And refuse myself, recuse myself,
But all I’d ask is that you
Hold my hand, ensued the chaos,
I promise – I won’t let go.

I spent the entire next day,
Apologetic…embarrassed,
And a little more lost –
Faded further, from the night before,
The now-embedded moments,
Slivers broken skin,
In increments,
And never quite whole.

So I spend tomorrow today,
Anxious, afraid, eye on door,
An ear for the phone, and all for you,
Entirely, when you’d forgotten me,
And I’d hoped to forget me too;
So ensues the conundrum,
A wish that it’s all in my head,
And that you really do care.

Truths be told, I’m usually the fog
That lifts and later leaves come morning.
Off-scripted, you’d beaten me to the punch.
You were the one gone far before dawn,
No name, no number, no, “nothing,”
Yet more, “bountiful,”  than ever,
And maybe it because, the “empty’s,”
Actually me, the awkward, “other.”

I want you to know
one thing.

You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.

But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine