You can keep your secrets.
You can keep the past in the past.
Just tell me what you need.
Because I think we have something
That can last.
All it takes is your smile
to make me smile too.
All I need to be happy
is to see you happy too

Flashes of yesterday’s garden,
deep green under a gray sky--
I step into the canvas, moving
slowly, regretful and watchful,
with the weight of past light.

So many colored years,
some bright, some somber,
and you, the voice that ripened
youth, the accented syllables
opening the hours between
cliffs and sky, your presnce
re-appearing in soft explosions
of living, so painful to let go.

I pray for change, impermanence,
for last year’s dust to settle to
acceptance, to turn over the pages
of the past and to forgive everything.

There are days where I embrace sadness
The years of torture as my heart beats
The liquid poison I drink to forget feelings
There are nights I embrace the misfortune
The cold and lonely air wrapping itself around my broken body
The way my lungs continue to fill with the polluted gas I call oxygen
There are moments I feel sadness and moments the room fills my mind with memories
Little miss sadness destructive yet so pure

You want perfection
While I hold your baggage
But can you hold mine
For just a second
Oh wait you can't
I see
Also do you want to
Remain blameless while
I hold all the stakes
Well that's fine too
Let me spoil you
Even with you
Sitting on my back
That's that true real love
I doubt there
Ever be a tipping point
As I carefully hold it in
With no spaces
To vent
As I smile

You flip your fingers through your ever shining locks and gracefully saunter through the halls

The heads turn as the masses gleefully greet and smile at the beauty of how your pieces are placed together oh so precisely

You held power, plenty of it
And I was in the way

It was strange to see the reactions on the faces of familiars when I told them of the crushing things you could accomplish.
None wanted to believe that such a beauty could hold such a bite.

And I tried to convince myself of that too.
Plentiful years have passed and all have moved on

Yet I stay stuck in these empty halls

Wondering why your bite took so long to become infected

Wondering what remedy could treat this ancient ailment.

I sat down by the tree in the center of the cul de sac
and I stared straight ahead for what seemed like days.
There was a brand new mailbox and front door,
but my ten year old handprint is still on the driveway.

My favorite dog, Louie, used to lay on that windowsill
and patiently wait for me to come back from school,
and behind that front window was the formal dining
room where my dad first taught me how to play pool.

Just behind that was the kitchen where Momma used to
make meat patties and gravy, her hands covered in flour,
and the upstairs middle window was where my sisters
and I used to argue over who was first in line to shower.

The upstairs window on the far right was where my
neighbor used to throw small rocks to get my attention.
Eight years later, that friend is now in a cemetery and I think
about him and his family more than I can even mention.

The memories of my entire childhood are embedded
into each brick of this two story house in Candlelight Hills
and knowing that my white picket fence past is now
nothing but distant fond memories gives me the chills.

These walls in front of me shaped me into who I am today
and as I sit here on the curb reminiscing on my own,
I know in my heart that no matter where I live
or how many years pass, this will always be my home.

Frozen in the past of my mistakes.
Trapped in the presence of my regrets.
Shuttered by the future of my failures.
Your love keeps me warm, as life grows colder.
I miss the sweet innocence of my youth.
Why did I have to grow older?

Can’t say you’re the best thing I’ve ever had.
But you’re the only one that’s remained.
It is said that somebody precious always leaves a mark.
Guess you never left, because I can still feel the footprint.
Your love surely fills the void in my heart.
Your beauty so perfect, correcting the errors of my misprints.

I don’t promise, I’ll never let you down.
But I know for sure, I’ll never let you go.