Memories still
sporadically engulfing me.
Faded photographs,
forgotten dreams.
Vast yet insufficient,
all the same--
like that space
between my ears,
or the one
just beneath my ribs.
Hope long since
faded to black:
Black like the plague
that savoringly
wounded my heart:
A heart that beats strong
yet grows weak:
Weak like my knees
at the sight of you--
although I've long since
been blinded by
the bright of your presence:
A presence I cannot shake,
even though I finally let go.
Moving on,
left with no other choice,
still I find you,
waiting there,
in the nether-regions
of my troubled soul.

Is it habit?
Is it love?
Or just mere STUPIDITY?
Idiocy in waiting for
the happily ever after
in this the fairytale
that never ends,
yet fails to begin.
The tears run dry,
fewer in between,
but with a simple shove,
they are borne to life
(again!)
Be they for you
or the me you caused me to be,
I stopped questioning
some time ago.

I like where I'm heading,
but I despise that I go
without you
(or someone like you.)
We are promised
by the prophets
(and the phantoms)
another inevitable encounter,
but I've given up
expecting this to ever be.
Will there be another?
Or will I wander through life
in solitude,
clinging to brief chance meetings
and a never-ending
filter of friends?
Or will I just
meet an untimely death,
left to drift in the ironies
of wasted worry?
Or, perhaps,
you will once again prove
Them all wrong,
They who view you:
a careless asshole
selfishly tending to
his own wounds
and nothing but.
They whose ranks
I somehow joined
without even realizing.

And yet,
forgiveness is now
laying at bay,
just under my toes,
resting in wait
to be given.
I forgive myself
(for making you flee.)
I forgive you
(for spinelessly withering
out of existence.)
And I forgive They,
the They's with all
their opinions and standards
(and "morals")
for making this life
a CROSS,
rather than the Gem
it was meant to be.