It’s okay, I’m not a freak.
I don’t even want to sleep.
I lay down, I rest my head,
but I don’t want to go to bed.
You might say I’m not okay,
it’s just that I don’t want to lay
on my bed, with all my fears,
that I would lose so many years.
I can still recall your face,
as the shore absorbs my stride.
I met you at your resting place:
the treehouse underneath blue sky.
In that hideout, in the tree,
along the makeshift wooden door,
I had set up across from me
those photos from the time before:
The hallway where we’d stop to speak;
the bus stop where we had to part;
our secret meetings at the creek;
my notebook with your scribbled heart—
These thoughts intoxicate my steps
as I walk along the shore.
A thousand years it seems were kept
in pictures on our treehouse door:
The classroom where we held back laughter;
the swing-set where we settled bets;
your locker where I marveled at her;
the dance you wanted to forget…
Remember when we jumped the stream
and raced along the broken tracks?
We lost our breaths and had to lean
against each other’s heaving backs;
We picked out faces in the clouds.
(My favorite lays there in the grass.)
Your laughter finds me even now,
it’s framed and frozen by the glass.
This glass that panes your final face
has taken your place by my side;
There is no blue sky to embrace
after you suddenly died.
My sleep has suffered what has passed,
as late night sunlight signals dawn;
for I framed all your photographs
a long time after she had gone…
Regret has set my every step,
as I walk across the sand.
With every footfall I reflect
on how it was to hold your hand.
I wish you were here on the shore.
This horizon isn’t blue.
The wood has rotted on our treehouse door.
I guess I won’t be seeing you.
Thinking you were all alone you glared at me in stranger’s home,
My silver rays’ writ on your face reflect a liar’s hiding place,
Yet through the lies I recognized recognition in your eyes,
You cannot change for want of chains, this lieful life must needs be maimed.
So I beamed back a frightful fact: “Homegrown is all of your despair!”
In my silence was your violence showing friends your hateful stare,
And finally they all could see you yell “unfair!” to no one there,
For my honest chrome mirrorly outshone your crazed and glassy glare.
Fifteen years of tears I spared
now spent on you,
So the deafness of your ears could not resist
the last ‘I love you’.
This stormy night a living wake
As we lie in fear of a hurricane,
but I would have stayed up with you anyway.
Still, like teardrops in rain, every moment missed
is mist forever;
So I swear that as your hairs disappear from this house
we will not forget you.
This place does not belong without you;
How great a dog you had to be to go
and all the lights in your home follow.
To lift up a weight
and have it fall on you.
To play at a part
that wasn’t cast for you.
To need it so bad
and have it ignore you.
These are the things that have happened to me.
This is my lot in this life.
I lifted a weight
that I was not meant to,
I played all the parts
and sold out the venue,
I looked at my want
and asked it “Who are you?”
This is the me that has happened to things.
This is this life in my lot.
It’s with regret I sail from Moon
and seek the holy, sunlit noon;
for pride had turned my face from her
and bore her sorrow, undeserved.
It’s with regret I greet the Sun,
tears fill my eyes with night undone;
for she is with me, even now,
though hate has filled her every how.
For her I had tied to a string,
and in her eyes I was a king.
Yet quick was I to ignore
the song she sang that I adored.
She brought me to forgotten shores;
opened mind and opened doors.
She loved me with unceasing smile;
unreturned, unreconciled.
For I was not yet King of Night;
the Sun should be her sole delight.
Yet I had dared to steal the throne
before I’d made my stellar home.
Now fast I fly approaching Sun
embracing light, the truth, the one,
and soon, I trust, my quest will end;
that once again we may be friends.
For I have learned a secret old:
that Sun and Moon together hold
a Lunar dance in midday sky
that I may see her freed from night
And tell her that I did not mean
to cut her heart and make her bleed.
To look into her cratered eyes
and finally apologize.
It’s with regret I pen these words,
for you were never free.
But if you chance to trust in me
I’ll take you to the sea.
Away from all that troubles you,
where minds of tyrants plot.
Where many try and fail to live
the sea seems worth a shot.
Where not the waves nor wind nor storm,
though powerful they seem,
Could ever break a spirit strong
who dare dream of the sea.
So run with me that we’ll be free
and do not fear your blood.
For when you dream the master’s dream,
the old ones turn to mud.
The dream is great and high and low;
it pulls out all the stops.
But fear remains for those afraid
of living like the gods.
So dream the dream that came to me
and see what is your prize:
The stars can wait, the world be yours,
for God is in your eyes.