If you were a place
you’d be a temple in Tibet.
You’d be cold as ice,
and hard to reach.
You’d be fraught with
danger and legend.
I could get lost for days
with no attention or
assistance.
Yes.
You would be a secret
temple in the mountains
of Tibet.
I would find you looking
for an answer, a cure
a purpose. Looking
for completion and peace.
I would leave
whole and calm
and perfect.

Years Ago:
We ran around in the snow for hours.
Shed our coats
and watched as the steam
rose from our skin
into the night sky.
We marveled at body heat
and cold air.

Yesterday:
I crushed what was left of the snow
into a rain puddle
and stepped on it.
It felt violent and wonderful.
I watched as the water
moved the tread prints
further and further apart.

Now:
You’re miles away,
watching the snow melt.
You’re looking at your phone,
wondering if you should call.
If I’m free. If I miss you.

All the time:
There is no window to
the past, no way to reclaim
what we built, there is
only now.
There is only the horror
and the glory of now.
I miss you, more than you know.
But I am not free.
I may never be.

I have walked these halls,
through eight nights and nine days,
I have waded through
the lies and false promises
of these tired days,
in this tired time.

There are no great men,
and if there were who would
even welcome them?
Who would match?
There may have never
been a time for great men.

I will find the door,
thousands of them, all
the same color,
all the same width,
they all open on the same
******* place.
Still I wander, still
I search.

Count my life in penny and dime.
Measure my hours in tea.
Know the whole of me,
if you have the time,
using lengths of twine.

Keep me in your cage.
It’s comfortable in it’s own way,
if only for a very brief stay.
Kept too long and be met with rage.
So say Magi and Sage.

Run with me to a place far from here.
Hand in hand I can lead you.
Be with me, be strong, be true.
There is a time and place for cheer,
So I’ve been told, so I hear.

The fear engendered by a righteous act
is called cowardice.
To preform a righteous act because,
or in spite of, this fear
is called courageous.
To allow this fear to prevent,
or delay, a righteous act
is nothing short of
pathetic.

How I long for a righteous act.
What is the mettle of this man?
In what shapes and colors
am I defined?
To what parts are derived my sum?

For so long I have waited.
There was a time when I could
see them.
When you could point them out
and I would know them by name.
That has changed.
Miracles don’t happen here.

Are the pious also righteous?
Are the sinners capable at all?
Can a man be just one?

For so long I have waited
for a miracle.
For a spark of the divine.
I have labored for this
harvest, but am forbidden to
partake of the fruit.
Is that not a righteous act?

Every year it gets farther away.
The cowardice, the jealousy,
the pain, the heartbreak,
the anger and the fear.
With time it seems so distant.
I don’t fall asleep facing the
door anymore.
I don’t dig inside myself
when trouble arrives,
or lament my station and it’s
hopelessness.

It took so long to see
what this world could offer.
To find the wonder.
Now that I am here
I pride the ability to
wonder, to create, to think,
to dream and above all
else the power to endure.

Life is trial.
It is test and failure.
It is pain and affirmation.
Light is strong and good.
Wise and powerful.
But there is no teacher
as good as darkness.
This I know.

I find myself in search of
a mountain.
So I may preach my own
sermon on the mount.
To an audience of one.
I hope that if my words
carry the right gravity,
my volume high enough,
my content strong enough
that you will hear me.

My message would be clear:
Endure. Build this nest
inside, where no man can
reach, and hold it.
Each year past it will grow.
You will be so filled with hope,
so unafraid of the world
and the dark, ****** terrors
it has in store.
Endure, my friend.
There is so much to look
forward to.

Meet me in the forest,
what passes for one here.
Tell me your secrets and I
will tell you mine.
Over flashlight and
blood pacts we will
save our bottle caps
for our whispered projects.
In a notebook we keep the
page for decoding the
language we invented.
Each night we’ll bring the latest
chapters of our story.
In the morning we’re strangers.
We don’t talk, we don’t laugh,
we don’t look.
We’re each others best kept
secret.
One day we’ll decode love,
without the help of invented
language or spiral bound
notebooks.
My god, I miss the illusion
we had built around our
“Love.”