A Long Time Since When

A dampening air paths its way.  Leaking symbolic as it creeps to breathe.  Shellac posturing about my skin, dripping, reeking, emblematic of sin.  Blood coiled amongst jointed bone.  Commotion hollers for a return home. I long, yet cannot.

A wicked movement paces thin.  Dark and dreary, dreadful things, masquerading about, on a whim, demanding cheap pops to keep them in the state their in.  Fire ants show their wares and marching pins, collide upon encapsulated skin, unaware, unwilling to.  I hear the masters; I know their words.  Reflection, pool, crimson warm then cold.  As we’ll yearn, the long time since, the cleanser’s been used, yet soiled boundaries caress the folds.

Enigmatic chanting, powerful disturbances, of sects, like dominoes, knock one down, the rest will follow, at least that’s what the well-compensated, over-educated theorists claim to know.  I have my doubts. 

Rambling amidst a bramble, rolling fields fostering the dissidence from the recollections few, and bush for bristling eyes to gander through.  Corrupting patella’s kind-some touch. Bended knee, once more, should the ending change, from last time playing with a similar point-of-view. 

I do not fear the repercussions of how this confession looks to end. I’m much too old for that.  My flesh is hardened, like quick drying firmaments, awakened by erosion alone.  No daggers blow can alter this. No man without time can chisel deep enough. 

I remember the summers spent, in the abyss, at the void.  I stood, waiting, somewhat similar to what I do now, for your soul to gain release, for the penance I still strive to seek.

An oath I took many days before this minute here.  It was a vow, to a higher power.  A pledge to lead him in his finest hour was all that was asked of me.  I agreed.  I demanded steadfastness. I acknowledged the ends and means. Yet I could not harvest the patience.  I could not deny my limitations, my mortality, it’s selfish desire, it’s unyielding parch.

Blind in my actions, I defiled any who cared for me.  I rolled my eyes, blinking, in a rapid sense, to seal the moisture, blurring the lens, for fear of what might be on display. 

I was such the cucumber back in that time, green with promise, prickled to the touch.  I would take back the pleasures of youth.  If this were possible, if this were a possibility, I would be standing, first in line, last to leave.  However, as we all know, sin bleeds each sentence since.  No image, no fragment, no dangling, tangled pitch, no aspiration, no cloud to lay, nothing, not one is free, from the comingled desires played out in those early, formative days.  But still, the corruption has withered.  The mania has subsided.  I am different from that person.  A splitting occurred, some segment, down some line.  I am not absolved.  But perhaps one day, forgiven.

Locket in my fist, necklace trips through empty knuckles.  Flip the casing to one side.  Resurrect the love I once denied.  Pretending everything I know is but a vivid nightmare.  Some sorrowful tale, wrote for children, attempting to instill morality to the innocent.  Perhaps this is what never happened.  Perhaps I was the writer, with no understanding of consequence.  Maybe the writer enhanced the detrimental parts a little too much, making them more attractive than the moral ort offered at pieces’ end.

Books of questions, never answered, rest upon coffee tables, never used for beverage placement, too precious to stain, beside my bed.  I would add to them as confusion, or intricacies flashed, across the minds theater-like viewing chamber. Wide-screen, genre unclassifiable, perhaps noir, perhaps thrilling to those not involved, images I most likely only recall, as imprints, as Rorschach smudges, on some underused yet overvalued canvas wiped clean.

I still make notes.  I still read through each chapter, in the futility of an old man, looking to see if he, now, can answer any of them.  The wish of a dying man, with no seeds spread, no legacy to hold.  Loneliness is too cute a term.  It is too elementary to classify, all that’s transpired, all the white space in-between. Fractals, ghosts, live.

Drenched, I string fingers through straw.  Wondering when the clock shall strike.  At what hour the bird shall not be heard.  Perhaps, in this way alone, I’m like any other, regrettable being.  Closure is an open room.  You must not linger, lest a new passageway will become undone, and forever wandering you might roam.

And what do all these regrets say, when a loving family is by your side, wiping their faces clean.  Each tiny tear they bleed is a loving memory they have of you.  A hope that recollection will reignite, so you can remember, all the good you’ve done in life, what you have meant, still mean to them.  But they know, you won’t.  They know you can’t. They understand it’s not their fault, this place you’re in, includes not a single one of them. Yet they crack the window each morning, allowing light to bathe your face. 

They pray.  They hope.  They read stories.  They kiss your ignorant cheeks, momentarily altering hue. Temporarily bridging the gap, a connection that takes them individually back, to a place, a sacred place, a journey, they will not, cannot forget. They cry. They laugh. They hold each other’s hands and complete dialogue for those who stand beside.  Days of old adhere to days of present.  Gifts of memory, offered still.   

They grow closer to each other, all because of you.