Forever Alive
My poetry will die with me...
Yet, as the greedy and unspent tenderness swells,
All I want to do is shout my pain out into the world,
And just this once for someone to listen.
The unlikelihood of anyone hearing is clear to me.
All that I will accomplish is tearing my own heart apart with my voice.
It will echo from the silence around and come back to die inside me.
The entry wound, not a careful cut of a knife, but a messy gash from a bursting missile.
So I rejoice in being wise and kind,
Though what I look for is being loved, as I once was.
I ache for that long ago feeling
When I was the center of someone's universe.
As I cry now, there may yet be hope for me,
For when I write, I know I am still here.
And I can gather all that my thirsty and tender lips long for,
And make it stay forever alive as words on this page.
