| Like a stray cat in the alleyway waiting for the scraps you’ll cast away
|
| Like the grass leans toward the sun. |
| The moon comes out and pulls the tides away
|
| So close to understanding that the words danced on the tip of my tongue
|
| But when I went to speak them fell just out of reach. |
| What lesson to the
|
| wanting did the needing have to teach?
|
| I found comfort on the bottom, having nowhere left to fall. |
| Masked like a
|
| flower in the tall grass, or a robin’s nest inside a log. |
| I am not what you had
|
| hoped for. |
| I won’t amount to much of anything. |
| I am not what you had hoped for
|
| I’m not really anything
|
| So why bother? |
| Don’t build yourself a life
|
| Don’t build yourself a wealth. |
| Don’t bother
|
| Why bother? |
| Everything you build will burn
|
| Everything you love will turn to dust
|
| What great lesson were you trying to teach? |
| What heavy veil had laid over my
|
| eyes?
|
| What epiphany lied just outside of my reach? |
| What great fool I had to become
|
| before I could see
|
| I lined my nest like a bower bird with every sparkling thing I’d found
|
| Made a burnt offering of all that I valued and hoped the scent might lure you
|
| out. |
| But you were nowhere to be found. |
| Just the echoes of my voice resound
|
| You won’t be pure until you’ve surrendered everything you love
|
| But I couldn’t surrender myself
|
| Could a century of self-loathing undo the years of praise you gave to me.
|
| If I ran out into the ocean would your waves wash all the sins from my body?
|
| The line between my fear and faith too blurred to define, so I’ll just close my
|
| eyes and pray for reprise, so I might repeat myself again and make all the same
|
| mistakes, over and over, for all eternity
|
| Having nothing left only meant I had nothing left to lose, like a plant in the
|
| ground, just the dirt beneath my shoes. |
| Like a pen without ink, I’m a well
|
| without water. |
| Don’t cast your coins to me. |
| The only life worth living was a
|
| life worth nothing at all, so don’t hand me a ladder to climb out of this hole.
|
| Woe is me, but in this woe I’m free, in the sweet comfort of the bottom,
|
| having nowhere left to fall |