Maybe some day
I will stop hating myself
for everything I did to you
since time has obviously erased
what you did to me
at least there has been enough time for that
enough time for me to remember
only the happy things
not the miserable things
to look at the shape of your hands
in a picture
and remember things that have nothing to do
with what I'm even doing here
in my house
thousands of miles away
trying so hard not to remember
and yet to keep in my mind
everything that drove us apart
that led to you
hating me
hating you
and hating everything
I remember hating how I knew
that I knew it would never really last
because we were too young
too serious
and I was trying too hard
to build a life when I did not even have one
there was so much I didn't know back then
I didn't know
that with you
it would be impossible to go back
to whoever I was before
because when I filled my cracks with gold
some of that metal was you

I still hear your heartbeat
in my dreamings
I wake up with the sense
that I am not alone in my room
my body remembers you so well
how it felt to lie near you
to hear your voice
how can I remember its sound
when I have not heard it in years?

I know you would go with me
to this strange thing called Dagorhir
that it would make something in you
come alive
maybe that's why I was afraid
you might be there
that you too had discovered this thing
and we would be forced to be near each other
and I would make myself a fool
either for trying to hate you and failing
or to still love you

I want to say I don't know if I do
I want that lie
maybe I need it
but it's still nothing
but a lie
I don't stop loving people
I never have
and you took up so much of my love
that I'm still finding it in odd places
picking it up, dusting it off
and painfully adding it
to the collection once more

It's because I'm not free of you
everyone I know is still in contact
with you
social media's triumph at its finest
and I say nothing
other than it is strange
because I don't tell people
who to be friends with
Besides, I'd be shocked if they didn't think
our whole problem
was anything other than me
because I was the problem

You made mistakes too
but not problems
and mistakes are normal
while what I did was not
but I have never been close to normal
and I should have known better
I should have behaved better
and I have only paltry excuses
that make me ashamed even more
so I will not say them

For a while
I tried to be injured
but I think I always listed your faults
with all of your virtues
because they are the same to me
sure, you drove me into madness
but if I'm honest
what hasn't?
I wanted to possess you
to own you
and I know now
those are the ideas
of a mad person
because even then
I refused to be owned
even if you already knew my soul

I remember how it was
with you
and how it is
without you
even if I can't remember
what it was
before you
I still remember
your heartbeat
your hands
your laugh
and your ideas
such beautiful ideas

and I'm sorry.  For everything.

Can we speak of these certain vacant spaces
in my abandoned bedroom where the moon dwells
and shuttered creatures search their teeth
for a bloom of flavor and sun.

I'm surrounded by prosaic twilights--tenantless places--
where plaster perfumed by dormant fire
gapes with cavities and empty mouths
that seek him with their tongues.

Where darkness crawls on poppy seeds
on moths and reeds and shoes
to reach me in my consternation
now that his name has fled my lungs.


Today I sewed his note to my breast pocket
but it grew crescent roots like fingernails
and murmured that we were too young.

I am stranger to the taste
of candor, honor, or courage

a bland and simple fruit.

Exceptional at nothing,
I am exceptionally nothing--

withered from the stem,
the whole way through.

However I have seen
the pallor in your cheek:
a tempting succulence.

Salvation rests beneath
your ripened skin.

I will break the unmarked flesh

I will learn

to be
honorable too,

once I have had

the whole of you.

Change The Inner You

When you look back at your life
If you don't like the view
Then you must look within yourself
And change the inner you

Change the way you see yourself
With all the things you do
Give yourself a different look
A different point of view

Show a side that's seldom seen
And allow for something new
Create your own reflection
And do it just for you

It is only when you're honest
With what you see inside
That you create the image
Of what's seen within your eyes

When you look back at your life
If you don't like the view
Then you must look within yourself
And change the inner you

Carl Joseph Roberts