maybe what i'm finding that i hate isn't you, maybe what i'm finding isn't fair but it's real and it's true and it sears
like a desert, like a bone, like the dried out cone where marrow used to beat and bleed and pulse and grow, maybe i am just
seeking something which no longer exists, but that existence--
i will be desperate to prove--
that existence, which maybe was never between you and i, but an internal conversation in a soft voice, in a warm hand, in an early kiss
which you were never a part of. what i am finding is that years later i can be raw, years later i can be aching, and shriveled with rage
and not a single inch wiser for the steps i've taken, and still trying to sustain the internal conversation of what love can be, and that existence--
i have been desperate to prove--
the existence of love, which is not peaceful, but means peace,
which is war, but means hope, and which is old, and tired, and stagnated in the back of a rusted-out pickup truck
but grows fresh in the incandescent spring of our experiences. this was never a conversation that i had to have with you, but merely
had to have, had to learn to live inside of. and my whole body is responsive, is nubile, is peurile, and yet even the marrow i thought had dried up
and turned to dust hears your name
(your empty, worthless name) and cries wolf, cries for protection in the night, cries for the shadows stalking outside my window,
the shadows which are not you and never were you and yet, are yours. in the lamplight, in the twilight, in that dim existence--
i will be desperate to prove--
it's an existence that engorges itself on love, more love, and which can encompass more than one.
even after my ears are deaf they will still keen for the sound of your step at the door.