See the glass I built
along the barriers,
the rough edges,
the cracks and imperfection.

Well, you can’t see them now—
no, not me,
even behind this clear shield,
I now stand behind,
and you on the other side.

From here,
I talk into this frame,
to what I can see—

I will watch and protect you.
From here,
I will watch and protect you.

you know,
this frame may be clear,
I may see you standing there,

but sometimes,
the light so slightly bends,
and instead of running onto you,
deflects—

and I often catch a glimmer of myself,
my reflection—

I will watch and protect you.
I say.

And i gaze into the lines on my face
you so effortlessly carved,
the paths to our end

In this glass, in this frame,
on this shelf,

preservation—
don’t we all need it?

If you pay the price,
you may reap what hides—
there’s a secret garden nobody knows.

You go driving ’round,
look in, but never enter.
If you’ve got a hammer and a vase,
you can take what’s hers.

She’ll lead you down the path
that you never let one in yourself.
Hopes of being heard—
he never truly will.
In her words, his mind,
forever at risk, yet still yearns.

There’s everything you want, everything you need.
His second nature: restraint—

always is, and ever will be.
If you don’t take her hand,
what else have you got?
But those daisy chains of empty thoughts—

it’s all slipped away.

And time sits upon him on her bench,
his mind wanders,
with the stars as they trail along, behind another,
like a queue of his thoughts,
and once again, blocked,
from what is his—
a chance lost in the haze, as he watches her walk away.

And there he stands,
still-
in her secret garden.
Which once was,
what he could have been