2.
Summer after summer has ended,
balm after violence:
it does me no good
to be good to me now;
violence has changed me.
Daybreak. The low hills shine
ochre and fire, even the fields shine.
I know what I see; sun that could be
the August sun, returning
everything that was taken away--
You hear this voice? This is my mind's voice;
you can't touch my body now.
It has changed once, it has hardened,
don't ask it to respond again.
A day like a day in summer.
Exceptionally still. The long shadows of the maples
nearly mauve on the gravel paths.
And in the evening, warmth. Night like a night in summer.
It does me no good: violence has changed me.
My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;
now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,
with the sense it is being tested.
Once more, the sun rises as it rose in summer;
bounty, balm after violence.
Balm after the leaves have changed, after the fields
have been harvested and turned.
Tell me this is the future,
I won't believe you.
Tell me I'm living,
I won't believe you.
Spoiler:
Maybe all of this progress was never that.
Maybe it was moving farther and farther from the point of origin, achingly slow, while making no move towards the goal.
Then again, that is to admit, in a sense that life is linear. I've never believed that. The evidence is in my head. My thoughts have never been linear. I have never been straight forward without shadows of intention and spontaneous, seemingly nonsensical, sputterings of emotion.
He wants a lover he'll never have to love. Fun without commitment to another, another's expectations to fill, or emotional responsibility for another person.
But I'll be damned if I can accept no responsibility for him, no commitment to him, no desire to fill his expectations. I cannot fill these impossible tasks, but I have always wanted to try. Fighting against the impossible. A lot of people do it. It is a tiring business, but it lets you know that time is still relevant.
One of these days God will strike me down for caring more than I ever had any business to.
Maybe he already has.
"I just want to make sure you don't have feelings. You've made it clear you don't. We're just at the same layover in Dallas."
I want to laugh until my sides burst.
"I know you."
Obviously not well enough. Maybe never at all. I want to bust the walls of the box you have put me in subconsciously. You are easily quantified in a number of ways. I am not though.
I change. Mutate. Evolve. While remaining the same.
Nothing is so frightening as a person that wants to break all of your perceptions of them because they can.
However, I don't trust him. I have openly admitted as much.
I bury myself deep.
Touch my hand my stomach to calm the waves of nausea.
Press my hands together, my thumbs to my chin and my index fingers to my forehead, only to gather the strength to mutter, "Get it together."
The most dangerous bedfellows are those that you don't trust and have told you all roads lead to nowhere. They admit some emotional feeling, but accept no responsibility. Some concern, but you turn a skeptical eye to these words when you look at their past actions which have clearly said, "This is the way it is."
They are fun when they tell you, consciously or subconsciously, that your perception of events is warped in their minds. "It went like this. Don't you see?"
No.
I am the other side of you.
Of course I do not see as you do. I was not made in such a way. I can bridge the gap so far because I want to, but if we are opposites...
Tell me. Where does that leave you?
Maybe it was moving farther and farther from the point of origin, achingly slow, while making no move towards the goal.
Then again, that is to admit, in a sense that life is linear. I've never believed that. The evidence is in my head. My thoughts have never been linear. I have never been straight forward without shadows of intention and spontaneous, seemingly nonsensical, sputterings of emotion.
He wants a lover he'll never have to love. Fun without commitment to another, another's expectations to fill, or emotional responsibility for another person.
But I'll be damned if I can accept no responsibility for him, no commitment to him, no desire to fill his expectations. I cannot fill these impossible tasks, but I have always wanted to try. Fighting against the impossible. A lot of people do it. It is a tiring business, but it lets you know that time is still relevant.
One of these days God will strike me down for caring more than I ever had any business to.
Maybe he already has.
"I just want to make sure you don't have feelings. You've made it clear you don't. We're just at the same layover in Dallas."
I want to laugh until my sides burst.
"I know you."
Obviously not well enough. Maybe never at all. I want to bust the walls of the box you have put me in subconsciously. You are easily quantified in a number of ways. I am not though.
I change. Mutate. Evolve. While remaining the same.
Nothing is so frightening as a person that wants to break all of your perceptions of them because they can.
However, I don't trust him. I have openly admitted as much.
I bury myself deep.
Touch my hand my stomach to calm the waves of nausea.
Press my hands together, my thumbs to my chin and my index fingers to my forehead, only to gather the strength to mutter, "Get it together."
The most dangerous bedfellows are those that you don't trust and have told you all roads lead to nowhere. They admit some emotional feeling, but accept no responsibility. Some concern, but you turn a skeptical eye to these words when you look at their past actions which have clearly said, "This is the way it is."
They are fun when they tell you, consciously or subconsciously, that your perception of events is warped in their minds. "It went like this. Don't you see?"
No.
I am the other side of you.
Of course I do not see as you do. I was not made in such a way. I can bridge the gap so far because I want to, but if we are opposites...
Tell me. Where does that leave you?
