Resigned, with standard excuses

Are you happier now that you've returned to the cold chill
of feeling a breeze all alone?
Do you see my shadow walking through the past of a memory
you created and do you feel your bones

pushing against the thin sheets where you lay in the dark
without me near you?
And is it ok, does it all feel ok, or better than that
now that you are only with you?

As always the creak of your floor under your bare feet only disturbs
the dust that you are happier not to move aside
Just because I am coming
but I'm not coming anymore

How does the air feel as it goes through your empty mouth?
What does it sound like when it comes back out
Now that it no longer is used to say nice things to me?
We don't always get away from our doubt.

A simple stroll once through the woods hand in hand
the biting flies buzzing around in the heat
and me with a fever and trying to press on
as always, I proved too slow on my feet

Does the best in me bring out the worst in you?
And how could I ever have known?
If I had, I would have made you a shit cake
and maybe then you'd have shown

one simple gesture to show the world around you
that now you know
living on the feces of some past regret or bad choice
will push you back to living on your own

But the wind never dies from my sails and I'm moving
ever onwards on my creaky ship
As you recede into the night skies shores
and I pull away from your slip

I'm a good captain and I keep a good log
full of my boring reflections
How hot the day was, how big the waves were
when we both lost our sense of direction.

a package undone

i borrowed the sighs of trees bending in the hot wind
of summertime on top of a mountain
and stole the aching beauty of a daffodil in full bloom
all shocking yellow and melancholy for such a short
time at its peak
and wrapped it all up in the childlike madness of wishes
and wobbling along on my path fully human
then handed it to you as if i’d done something brilliant
but like any package it must
come undone itself

so you stole the lines of some playwright whose name
you can never remember when you’re struggling
in polite posture and a smile that even you doubt
but you’re no diabetic imposter
with teeth falling out
and your words are like square tires on a broken down bike
somehow you fashioned an elixir to take care of the wreck
and the ingredients are known only to you and the moon
where your soul shimmers alone in a sadness
that keeps you from going insane

what will the cinnamon flavors of visits with grandparents
taste like when you sit in the idle rooms not yet built in your mind and not yet defined by cold experience from
feeling the ongoing disappointment of never really connecting
with those around you?
and when will you tire of me and my daffodil stories
that bore even me and yet somehow you still feign an interest
but you’ll find your own box and some pretty paper
to wrap it all up in with a nice card and hand it back to me
and it will all come undone.

*********************************************************************