how do you –

un-feel,

un-remember,

un-know…

how do you –

un-live,

un-do,

un-care?

nothing that i’ve ever felt,

no sunrise seen;

dream imagined – true –

nothing that i’ve ever known

made in this world –

compares to you…

essential as air –

attached to my need as much as dawn –

to night –

the all of you is everything to me…

how can a soul –

un-need,

a touch once felt?

how does a heart –

un-break,

once broken?

agony in your absence –

lonely,

cold as midnight dark –

pieces scattered on the ground of –

used to be happy.

shattered dreams,

thin as angel’s hair –

carried away by winds of discontent…

there was,

at one time,

a house,

on a hill.

strong cold cement walls hidden in a sea of trees.

i still remember the smell of the cool damp basement,

and the sound the cedar tree made

groaning in the wind.

and if i reach back –

far enough –

i can find the innocence –

lost.

can still feel the security of youth

slip off my shoulders,

and the absence of warmth with its leaving…

i grew up in that house –

well before my time.

learned lessons too soon to comprehend.

walked out of those doors

like a prisoner from a cell.

cowering  beneath a sun – seldom seen…

clinched fists –

holding pieces of a broken heart –

with no hope of healing!

wanting more than less –

needing more than have –

i find my life in shadow,

standing still…

consumed by doubt –

entombed within the walls of disbelief –

i feel the madness creep

into my living,

forcing me to contemplate my fate.

do i seek refuge here

in dying’s harbor?

commit to nothing –

become un-done?

how simple then,

the letting go –

no need –

for need,

no longing –

to belong…

so sweet the peace that

must come with the passing.

so great the un-weight,

un-encumbered –

un-entwined –

the soul,

aged captive –

finally free…

working through the pain that has become my life.

stepping carefully on the thin ice of truth,

fragile –

cold.

so hard to strip away the shell –

layer upon layer,

so hard to face the lies –

confront the fears.

alone –

i stand – vulnerable, insecure,

afraid.

alone –

i fall upon myself – weak,

unable to face the reality of –

honesty!

suddenly you appear – strength –

holding in your hand –

a single – match.

what will you do with all the power?

confused –

anxious –

i watch you start the fire –

feel the heat –

feel the ice melting…

exposed –

unrestrained –

i give away all doubt –

throw caution to the very wind that feeds the flame…

i let my life melt into yours –

forgetting all the pain –

all the burns and scars of hurt –

     you cover me

     a desert –

     for the first time –

     feeling rain!