Rumination

I go back over,

things I could have said differently, ways I could have been, differently, situations I would rather have seen as being, differently.

I go back over,

Six weeks of a sort of half-starved, half-baked madness, all halves, no wholes. Blackness lacking of billow, consuming dark fire from within, here. Movement not dared, nor scream, nor gasp.

A pulse, and a cough.

I go back over,

Six months of an irresolute leaning, into neither grace nor definition, barely human, bared teeth, baring animal. Curled up within, some self sense, there must be some, sleeps tightly, not dressed. A motion mechanical, a movement not engaged, just borne. Pay me not, beautiful lover, I know not from which lens you see, nor the goods which you reap, open mouthed, closed eyed.

Belong not, to me.

I go back over,

Six seasons, not undone by time nor tempest, just bare of self-sense, bare of me. Absorbed in my little square screen of escape, reality harsh-edged and narrow, when I stretch up off the seat, through her portal. Too hard & heavy to pick up, too soft and unmalleable to be bothered, eating.

A tree, and a glimmer.

Too long forgotten.

I go back over,

A life cobbled together out of bare strings of selfhood, of six years, since I lost my family, punishment borne of losing them, for the difference, had it but been. A blank, cold, void, office hours unchecked, black suit and severe hair adorned, no self esteem, no sarcasm, no wit. Death wish, revisited. Breathing less each year, skin more translucent, scrabbling with fingernails against sandstone, for a sense of purpose, give me teaching, give me psychology, give me connection. Six years not unaccompanied by my beloved birth family, but not rested for understanding, for the difference, either.

I wake now as rarely, before, the cold sunlight of dawn slips her appearance under my eyelids, controlled crying unabated, next door.  I pad about in the back garden of her chill welcome, arms wrapped about, sniffing for life again, drawing grass, dirt and weed up, between my toes. Let me breathe. I know not all the means by which circumstance flung me against you, dear morning.  

I suffer under your weight no more.

 Let me breathe.