"what kind of a person does that?"
pain, my friend, causes much that we do not understand.
despair brings only despair, therefore
question not.
for to walk over the hot coals
of critical acumen into the fire of regret
-where there is no water
no wine
no vice
that could ever quench you-
can bring you to a truth
that burns a scar so thick
nothing, not even death
can penetrate it.
In that isolation
one can not know faith.
yet
wisdom may come
at some far removed moment
and the many long hours of our lives
that were wasted in an instant
are regained beyond all previous measure
with a mere change of mind.
this morning
how different?
how much
the same.
I have known you.
is it enough?
to walk through this life with
only this small pearl
in my heart.
ah,
but it has grown
already,
to be
an
egg.
tomorrow
perhaps,
a swan.
will I be able
to carry you,
forever,
within me?
No.
all birds
must
fly.
I have known you.
is it enough?
Nothing changes, New Years Day.
I stood in your shadow, a mere reflection of your wish.
There is nothing of me in that.
I worried how I could make my self Visible again...
I watched you change from one minute to the next.
I listened to my heart close
when you pressed on my mind with your own...
How do I tell you
when you tear the paper?
How am I here
when you take the door down?
How can I live when your need
is bigger than my whisper?
These are the things I felt, when my feet left your room
for the other room where I could think.
These are the things and more and more
that never came out of my mouth
for fear you would tear them, for fear you would banish me...
I lived there...
I walked through your rooms with vanilla on my hair...
But you crushed me and smeared me into a stain.
Now you talk of me in lists of evil doings,
you rant that I raved.
But as you are so fond of saying,
It didn't happen in a vacuum.
I could almost forget your cruelty today,
then I remember that I did forget.
For so long, I forgave this streak of rage
and meanness in you,
that now to remember is almost like a dream.
Everything that hurt was buried deep in me.
As it emerges I cannot restrain my weeping.
I can't leave the house for weeping.
It comes upon me like a huge wave
and floods the floor beneath me.
I am standing one minute and on the floor the next.
Your vicious words fall out of the closet in my head...
they are spilling and spilling towards me.
I have to let them out and flow away forever,
but it seems impossible.
We were faith.
It was a project, many years preempted.
I sat on your lap in my kimono..
and you told me I was too young
and that you were going away.
I nodded my head.
You left.
I stared out the window for a few weeks.
There's that feeling again.
The windows are so big.
I covered them with white cloth,
but it seemed like a shroud on reality.
I bought curtains covered with green vines...
now, I sleep in a cold castle, alone.
It is like a death.
The loss of you is a dream unrealized.
The lines in the sand
drawn with small wooden rakes,
and our love is an island
in the sand sea.
The people stand by and look at it.
They say nothing.
Your letter today
an impossibility...
how can I have lingered,
watching the Koi,
and not noticed
your cruelty
for two years?
