To be read listening to: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor Op. 23 - Allegro non troppo

 

 

When you used to love me,

I thought loved myself.

On teenage stomachs we kissed,

On old friends sheets we stabbed one another.

One knife bent and lost in a concrete river,

The other shining and clean.

Upon entry,

And retrieval.

 

When I used to love you,

I wasn't who I would be tomorrow.

 

I wasn't who I will be tomorrow.

 

You weren't who you are today,

and thank the Gods better men worship,

and the scrapes,

and scabs,

I was too stubborn to learn from,

An unforgiving,

Open,

Cracked,

Bleeding,

Iron soul,

Brittle and un-tempred,

Said no.

 

When we were young and beautiful,

Vodka drool on an un-dressed mattress,

In the wake of an early arrival,

In a sea of chest out- face down- bottoms up- tribe,

We could touch the tops of our hands together,

And shiver.

 

When we were bound by the contract of teenage love,

We could forget the passing of smooth,

Un-bent knuckles,

And hold grudges.

 

You could find my smiling enemy,

And in the glow of a cyclical DVD menu,

Find a temporary peace.

 

I had found an answer to a question,

Of Truth,

And Falsity.

 

You had borne the scar of a beautiful,

And freeing lust.

 

I had borne the scar of a filthy,

And selfish conquest,

Ending in defeat.

 

Or so I pictured.

 

Cotton passed over shoulders.

Tears landed on poorly produced fabric,

Blue,

The interior of a borrowed Honda.

 

I had left,

Retreated,

From a war that couldn't be won.

 

With blood soaked dungarees I knelt,

In mourning for,

At the time what I thought,

Was a girl who deserved more.

 

As i washed the Cannon soot from my palms I saw the swirl of filth on white tile,

Surrounding my mothers sink.

I felt the guilt of a publicly justified murderer.

 

But in time,

The roughness of a noose never wound became as soft as the skin on our teenage knuckles.

 

The planks of an un-used gallows ceased to creak in my dreams.

 

Guilt I had purchased from a boy who looked just like me,

Found the foul in the stitch of my pocket,

and leapt downward toward finely partitioned sidewalk pavement,

of our home town.

 

The gods inside us both wrestled with one another.

 

I forgot who I was.

 

I lost my mind.

 

But it was replaced,

Re-configured,

And arranged in rows only I could navigate.

 

We didn't speak.

 

We began to speak.

 

We began to weep.

 

We began to push against one another,

And remember the softness of the skin that covered our hands,

and the rest of our bodies.

 

Herded by the herd.

 

Poisoned by the thistle.

 

Im certain Ive said sorry.

 

Im sure Ive begged for forgiveness.

 

But Im not so sure,

Ive said thank you.