An infant, eyes wide open, stares into the world and sees nothing. An adult narrows his vision and sees what he wants. An old man closes his eyes and sees everything.
Phil Lindsey, August 10, 2016

Something has happened.
I have changed.
This happens to all of us.
But I'm scared.

I'm scared because I think
that at some point
I lost something.
Something of myself.
Something I can never get back.

And what really scares me.

Is that with every passing day.

I remember less and less.

What I lost.

I don’t know why she was so easily frustrated
or why she spent hours on end,
at the end,
on the floor compulsively cutting
butterflies out of book pages.
I don’t know why she grew to hate her birthday so much
or why she seemed to become increasingly more and more indecisive.
I don’t know why she began to write those letters,
that jumbled, nonsensical prose
that tumbled, then rose again
only to fall again,
end and begin again.
What begins only just ends again.
And again.

I don’t know why I write in third person
or why I write these letters
or why I can’t make decisions
or why I hate my birthday so much
or why I’m burning these butterflies,
watching the flames feast on their wings.
And I don’t know why I think these things,
the things they say not to think.
But I think that the thoughts I think can’t just be unthought,
that thinking these things can’t be untaught,
like I can’t be untaught to love you.
And that’s where things get really confusing
because you’re not the you that I knew
anymore.
And I suppose I’m not the you that you knew anymore either,
but in my heart and somewhere in the attics of my brain
we’re together, alive again.

I can’t seem to decide much anymore
I keep looking for a sign
That’s not how I used to live
But gettin’ closer to God takes all my time

I think my boy is gonna’ miss me
I figured out being a man meant being there for him
He has to make his way out into the world
But gettin’ closer to God is going out on a limb

It seems somebody’s always tryin’ to save me
I didn’t know I was in such a mess
I can’t be like everyone else
Jesus said pray in a closet
That’s where I think best

I’m slowing things down, that’s how it is
I don’t need to hurry anymore
That’s not how it was long ago
Gettin’ closer to God means not livin’ like before

Did you think I would never miss you
I think I know now how much I was blessed
It’s not about who loves who the most
I’m just gonna’ say it and let God tell you rest

It seems somebody’s always tryin’ to save me
I didn’t know I was in such a mess
I can’t be like everyone else
Jesus said pray in a closet
That’s where I think best

Frenetic rhythms
smooth, softening and
ripening into
grooves, the space
between notes
now comes-to-presence
in dimensions
younger ears
will someday hear

waiting for unsure
notes to catch up
to the perpetual
pulse of the hidden beat
that drives this ecstatic
dance of self-undoing

orchestrating
a dynamic storyline
within the silent
odeon of an aging heart

where one day
Wisdom will sing
the Beloved to sleep.