Don’t—!
Don’t speak a word
Outside the rounds
We usually fall through

Don’t let yourself
Realize
The hours have grown few—

Put your steps
In time with mine,
Let’s wonder at the stars

And talk of life and love and risk
And things that are not ours

And overlook that day by day
Time has taken the hours away

For as they left, they left behind
A space that friendship filled

Memories that folded themselves
From the paper we tread upon

And wrote in tiny, scrawled hand script
Letters only we can read

That rise from the pages of our maps
When we wander back that way

And give the places two-fold depth
When we retrace our steps

A new world before our eyes—
An old one in our living breath

For the things we did together
Creased the maps we carried on

And directed the tumble of our lives
As we stumbled forward on

Turning us round certain corners
By instinct innumerably built

From things we did and said
When we were young and still

Hand in hand beneath the trees,
Beneath those chilly stars

Thinking only of the songs we loved
And the dreams they’d begun.

It’s this same old nonsense
I want to remember as our last—
No talk of change and parting
And commemorating things gone past

For that would steal away the chance
To have five minutes more
Of us together in this falling world
Just as we were before.

So blink away the facts of time,
Ignore its heavy power,
Steal back from it the moments few
To be we and us and ours.

They belong to you and me,
And time cannot have them.

The door snaps shut,
The trees fall in,
I’m reaching out
For you again.

The moment that
My warmth meets yours,
The fear they stoke
Misses a chord—

The road may twist
Far out of sight
Through stifling fog
And moonless night

But a glance at you
As we drive on
Confirms you’re here,
Where I belong,

And nothing else
Can break the pulse
Of healthy human certainty
Kindled by minds alike to this degree.

The forest is not empty then,
When you who also do believe
In open palms and honest eyes
Count the minutes of concurrent life,

A blessing more than
Could be achieved
By any act of self-sympathy:
The bracing breath of calm solidarity.

Swift turn left, the pillow crushes
below your fitful move,
your eyes search the darkness,
restless, for something in the room.

You listen close for that small sound
that might reveal the step,
you wait in silence wondering
if time has ended yet.

Below you, at your feet,
the wall bears a simple drawing:
the shape of night and music
in peace without motion or purpose.

As breath moves ever on,
and life demands its substance,
you place yourself within that frame
and think back to moments shared

when you were full of hope and light,
on far and distant shores
surrounded by the scarlet glow
of soft solidarity.

Without a word, you feel yourself
accepting all that is;
those moments now remembered
have prepared you for all of this:

for meeting without argument
whatever now may come,
for holding with a smile
the reciprocal to the joy

as only fair repayment
for the wave that you felt then,
when everything within the world
was beautiful and calm

when every footstep that you took
had led you to the place
where you were surely meant to be,
below those pearly stars

and nothing more
could you bear to ask
from the balance of
all the world

There’s a moment irresistible
when you find yourself alone,
to imagine those within your life
as you would have them be.

Not for perfect, self-made wants,
but for finding soulful closure
on conflicts of the past
that will never be revisited.

When honesty demands you cast
aside imagination’s skew
you run your fingers over
the rough wall now facing you:

it must have been there all along,
but you managed not to see;
to touch it now scrapes your hands
as you search to find an edge.

But, edge it hasn’t, nor visible top,
and as time presses in from behind,
you realize if you need room to breathe
you’ll have to turn another way

Else be compressed against this wall
by the shrinking of belief
as others pass you by
and light fades to frigid neutrals.

There are not arms to hold you here,
are not and never were,
to imagine other than what is
will not help you solve the problem:

it will not make this gravel side
into comfort or protection—
it will not produce from the other side
a heart unnatural to the substance.

By crushing here in determination
you do not harm the wall.
You scrape your skin and bruise your knees;
it will be your own fault

if you do not make the choice
to change now that you have seen
the object you mistook for love
is hard, and cold, and stained.

So turn away, take a breath,
mop up your weary limbs;
do for yourself what that other won’t
and release expectation grown thin.

There will be other roads to walk,
and other companions to meet
who carry their own scrapes and scruffs,
who have grown to understand

you cannot replace the hearts of others
with wishful kind improvement—
you must learn to see them as they are
and see yourself back through them.

-

There’s a fundamental lack of understanding that goes along with finding yourself against that wall. Even when you know rationally that there is a person who doesn’t care—who, if they knew a particular action would hurt you, would take it specifically so—you still find that instinct urges you to explain, to expect understanding and consideration, before thought has caught up to remind you it’s useless. The feelings have not yet on the level of belief accepted what the mind knows, whether the reason is simple habit (from hoping so long for better from that person) or more real incomprehension.