I sit here and wish I wasn’t alone

But I don’t want anyone to get close

I wish we weren't so - temporary.
I wish the words 'left' and 'gone' never existed,
And I wish no such assortment of consonants and vowels was ever invented.
But then there's no way around it,or is there?

There was a piano that I played.
An old one,but now its keys are broken.
And I keep on counting as more break.
A life,much like this piano -O the comedian that God is!
I keep on counting - as my friends go away.
I won't hear both-the broken keys,the friends gone.

Friend 1
(My first friend in college - a birthday gift from God,who went away the next birthday)
Remember how I'd always say to you,
'Don't respond to my crap. I'm again falling for a girl.'
And you'd reply briefly,
'Good idea. Falling fast.'

Friend 2
Remember how we'd always talk, starting with,
'Promise you won't tell anybody?'
And we'd talk for hours exchanging embarrassing anecdotes,
Yet,not get tired of it at all.

Friend 3
Remember how you'd say,
'I saw you sitting alone in college.I wanted to come.'
And I would answer,
'Yeah,I do that these days.'

I wish you weren't so - temporary - all of you!
I wish the words 'left' and 'gone' never existed,
I wish you all stayed.
I wish your echoes didn't torment me,the way they do.

pain with no script
subterranean roar
pressing call
pushing through
unkempt wasteland

places we don't see
lest they confront
status quo
hidden from all
but the sharp

as echoes we meet
find the persona
sear like another
stinging coal
on splintered frame

bent from carrying
shadows
cast on the
lake of fire's
unceasing scourge

There's a sharp frosty switchback that never sees the sun in winter
  skies of blue. The frost heave cut-bank rocks tumble down to the
side of the road,  in the ice shard mottled ditch lay frozen stiff

Tall Sitka spruce marbled gray shadows mat the sparsely traveled
  corridor, paved with potholes, where the roads have no names
Sometimes listening quietly to the bare stillness, there are
  rhetorical questions heard in the silent reverie's say:

                        "Have you ever been afraid?"

The tree-line gaps above the jagged gray stone ravine, disappearing
  down the rugged mountain shade, falling into the pillow-top fog bank blanketing the canyon's murmurs below — headed towards the ocean

Crystalline spring waters gurgle up roadside — out of nowhere,
  where tired boots stand in reverent contemplation as it all sings out  harmoniously to the trees in the key of silence;   it was there
  in a gust of restless forbearance heard the frozen peacefulness  say:

                         "Have you ever felt alone?"

Gathering a deep breath of marbled gray shadows, silence bears
  a loud holler's scorn — echoing back and forth down canyon walls,
with the spirit of a voice a multitude strong,  evanescent
                             as winter's outgoing tide.


                      January 2019 — Jesse Stillwater