Confusion With a K

1/6/11

Words.

Yours still weave with mine, still ring in my ears. The love songs and robberies and even Michael (who was never me) play on repeat without you here. The back beat of a piano melody, knowing its your hands on those ivory keys makes a typhoon erupt in my gut, a swoon so soft even a pin couldn't hear it drop, a pain in my eyes of tears no longer deserving daylight. So I choke them back with another pill. The promise I made is one I will live up to. (This time at least).

The vow to remove my fingers from your hair, thrust them back into my pockets, to allow you air (though I've learned now it was never mine to give. You breathe without me and my control is like a little kid thinking his open sesame makes that store door slide by). I'm going to be different this time.

I'm going to stop believing my mind reading is an all knowing unfailing absolute truth finding tool, replacing analysis with listening, doubt with trusting, realize you know you better than my arrogance ever grasped. That there's a reason you stand in front of the class and my clowning might get attention but can't compare to the insights I've ignored out of high school fear.

I'm going to come to terms with the new name on your lips, the one you whisper to touch the stars, the one who holds your hand and squeezes back and reminds you of the million springs in your step while warming the hundred winters of your past. Someone whose name will last instead of sway, kneel instead of pray, will still ring sweet on the pillow the morning after and promise that yesterday can come again with more laughter and light then before, renew your trust in change as possible and your faith in self as unstoppable, a name you can build statues with as each new city street unfolds.

A name to replace mine, which was always written in pencil with an eraser nearby since the first porch conversation to the last kiss goodbye. A fact I see too late as the case always is, that you're written on my body but I can't turn that to gold. That you're perfect in my eyes but to you I'm the flu, a cold with symptoms ranging from fatal to beautiful, that infection is no way to win affection and my parasitic behavior is selfish not protection. That behind my use of "Love" is an odyssey of fine print with terms and conditions that rewrite the script. That you were right (as the case always is) about the cutting the cord to allow us to live.

So I promise I'm going to be different this time. No roadblocks or trap doors or misleading rhymes. Just a bon voyage and one final tear, as you go into the sunset I'll take extra care to fold up this picture of us in black and white, to tuck it in an album, then walk out of sight.

If you need me I'm here, if you miss me then don't.

I was never a savior, just a stop in the road.