Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the heart feels a languid grief
Laid on it for a covering,
And how sleep seems a goodly thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

And how the swift beat of the brain
Falters because it is in vain,
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf
Knowest thou not? and how the chief
Of joys seems--not to suffer pain?

Know'st thou not at the fall of the leaf
How the soul feels like a dried sheaf
Bound up at length for harvesting,
And how death seems a comely thing
In Autumn at the fall of the leaf?

Once when I was younger, I caught a glimpse of what a Final Victory might be like. I had stayed up all night, wandering the empty streets and alleys of St. Augustine with two friends whose names are long forgotten. We strayed to the marina after pondering the absurdity of human existence and there, beheld a true Wonder. Just the barest taste of things to come, but an overwhelming awe. This Great Heart made of fire, bursting forth from the dark waters, an ocean of consuming majesty, such as I had never conceived. Can you imagine we, these infintesimal specks of life, being a part of this miracle, this new Day?

It began to snow. Big flakes, slowly spiraling out of the night sky. For a moment I let myself go and caught one on my tongue. It felt good to remember that not everything need be dramatic and painful. Good to feel a quiet peace for just a few seconds. She would have found this intensely beautiful. No good to think of that now, no good for yourself. There is something out of the past that continues to interfere with the present, some laughing hate born when I was a child. I met him under a streetlight, knowing he'd be there. "So you killed another love, boy, and now you're here to **** me? Doesn't seem very fair, after all I've done for you. Ungrateful I'd call it." Sneering at me with the old crooked smirk I knew so well, he lit a Camel. I told him he wasn't welcome here, did not have my permission to poison me. "Isn't this childish of you dude? Writing about trying to **** a part of yourself you hate, but that has helped you protect yourself from so much. Seems like you're whining to me, poor little boy got his feelings hurt and all that ****. There was no one there for you then except me, and there's no one for you now because you won't let the war be over." Starting to protest, he cut me off. "Don't you even dare to talk to me about her, or any of the others. You know **** well she's right and you're wrong and you don't have the right to come here and ****** at me for your own idiocy. Always trying to get rid of me and then you get hurt and come crawling back like you expected something different to happen, as if you expected to find love and happiness after causing so much pain. So what you've been lied to your whole life, she never gave you a reason not to trust her. And you brought all of this to the table, tried to hide your own wretchedness, wouldn't even tell her about your little mental health problem, so you can't be mad at me when that blew up in your face. You lied and hid not because of me, I'm just a defense mechanism. You did it because you couldn't really accept that maybe she'd love all of you, couldn't believe what you actually hoped for. Isn't that sad, this pattern of suspicion that if she knew everything she'd bolt at the first opportunity? How can you be upset when you didn't even give her the opportunity? Why are you surprised that it didn't work when you only ever showed half of yourself? No, don't interrupt me, you know I'm right. And you know what, you'll do it again, over and over and over, because you can lie to everybody else and yourself, but you can't fool me and you couldn't fool her. Admit it, you don't really find yourself lovable at all. You're ashamed of yourself and you don't even know why. So people fall in love with you and you can't accept that love. Or you fall in love with someone and strangle it. But you won't even accept that responsibility. You blame me. Well guess what, I didn't make your parents divorce, I didn't make dad hit your Mom with a frying pan, I didn't make you move in with him, I wasn't the one who ***** Kiki that night you were ****** around with Emily instead of paying attention to your friends, I wasn't the one who taught you to hate yourself and I **** sure didn't make you join the ****** Army. I protected you from all of that as much as I could......." I turned and walked back into the night.

don't pretend like you know me
because
you haven't been around in a while
or a month
or some years
I can no longer remember how much
...
i think i miss you sometimes
or the essence of you
or the memory of you
or us.
...
i said,
'i think maybe we were meant to be
but somewhere inbetween
the field of daisies and
wishing on dandelions,
we did something wrong'

you said,
'we forgot about ourselves
and our old selves'
...
and the silence at 3:01 am
seems somehow to connect me
with the parts of me that i lost
trying to find your smile
they connect me to the day
when you said
'things will change'
and they never did

to
me.

so don't pretend that
you do not miss me
sometimes

when the particles of dust
fly from your old couch in the afternoon
like if they were parts of my soul
**that are not yet done
leaving your body.

Probably a symptom of something
to ascribe internal suffering
to an external horror.

Creeping through my guts
my hair standing on end
the back of my neck prickling.

My God I am crazy
or I am haunted
but by what has no name.

I may be a liar and cold
and that did indeed
**** a barely born love.

It is good that we could not continue
as I was not forthcoming to you
about the state of my soul.

You would have had to endure
my nightmares and my fears
waking in a cold sweat.

I do believe in evil
having seen it firsthand
dined with it in darkened rooms.

And as sad as I am
in the midst of my insanity
there is not hope
but vindication.

To say that I expected this,
somewhere deep within
is probably the only answer to be given.

A self-defeating habit,
born somewhere in the dimness
of memories left to rot.

But to have faith in something
created out of nothing
should never feel like a sin.