Thursday, June 14, 2007
A poem (in progress?) I don't want most people to see:
Breaking your heartUPDATE: Edited after performing Thursday, June 21
is the hardest thing I have to do before leaving, so I'm saving it for last
because that aftermath isn't an insurgency I've got a real plan for.
And in trying to be selfless,
I'm making my self less
and all I want is to let you make me more than I am.
Crack the can open again;
vacuum seal separated as metal slices neatly through metal
at every emotional twist
until all of me is exposed and you can empty and rinse out my insides,
filling me back up with every dream I've been unable to articulate
because it lacked the eloquence your editing was able to offer.
You helped rewrite the stories of my soul in an order that made more sense,
and doesn't depend on defense to provide proper context.
It took a little bit of time,
but you're no longer a best-friend bandage
ready to fall away after any intimacy opened has healed.
You've rubbed raw my secret moments,
infected every embarassment
and poisoned my plasma with so much shared ... life
that a hemophiliac episode could never
bleed you out.
We've succeeded in stripping away
the pseudo-personality I repeatedly recreate
protective layer by practiced parable,
filleting the rigid structure of intentional reveals
in order to savor the flesh of my experiences
without any forced direction as you sectioned my soul into categories of your choosing.
"I'll take relationships that shouldn't have got this intense" for $500.
And when I come back to visit,
I hope you're somewhere else.
Not because you're out of town
or have a family function
or a fall festival on some farm,
but because you're bigger than this.
And I know you don't believe that,
and maybe you never will,
but all I can do is tell you,
lock my hands around your shoulders
and keep you an arm's length away
because you'll need the distance to see I'm speaking the truth.
When I'm speaking of you,
and the way your life sparkles like fairy dust and affects everyone else just as much,
because you allow them to fly when you make people believe
that Neverland really is the second star on the right and straight on 'til morning.
So stay awake with me
and steal kisses before the sun as it breaks above the balcony,
our eyes too bleary do anything but stare directly into the center
just like our mothers warned us not to.
But we won't go blind,
just come to find ... love
in a look we'll never get to share again.
And though time from that moment passes,
until we see that same sun set together,
this day
never
ends.
Labels: poetry
