Partake of Partnership?

Separate avenues

paved and rough cut

uncut footage found

you on the trail

and on the dusty path

I found you sitting there

along the stairs

would loneliness prevail

reveal the truths of what

I've hidden there

our lives intertwined

though distance kept

our simple lives behind

rewind to bitter times

on the fast track to

a better life

and you could not understand

that the path I take

Is no longer on demand

you reprimand

me for that which I cannot change

for separate chances take

a turn of paths

and my rough road is set

our time along the road is met

on all sides with troubles

we are beset

so take the high road with me

if you'd like to see the view

but know this: we are both askew

from what a lovers life should stew

my pot is empty, yours is brewing

overflowing with love true

I'm a ticking clock

chains overwrought

with weighs I cant undo

but we gave our love a shot

buck shot scattered over you

backfired and desired

more than I could ever do

my perception filters down to

my self image underdone

uncooked ego under wrung

and each ladder rung is

grease coated and lose

so then we come to THIS

our original path

full circle we've come

and it has come to THIS

should we travel together

or continue on alone?

Its more than chance

that we met along the roads

undisclosed were our destinations

hidden arrival times

and reasons to live on

but every step we took

it lead us closer still

to the one closest together

to the place where our dreams

would be fulfilled

I cannot predict the future

barely can I remember the past

so should we walk together?

No longer lovers

but still with hands clasped?

I am a bitter stranger

pill hard to swallow

but sweet upon the tongue

you are a lonely lady

needing comfort

BUT require time in the sun

and my path is shrouded

from the light that you would need

to prosper makes me perspire

and I simply cannot take the lead

so make the call or flip a coin

take the reigns or leave it up to

by chance we meet one day

it will be as friends

unpainted by rose glasses hue

So we meet again, three am...

aiming low and hitting
emptiness and grief
my belief is that this time
underhanded deeds will release
the reasons why I took so long
to fly my flag high and render
the tender replies
I owe nothing to the world
it responds in kind
and it doesn't really matter
if nothing really matters
if matter isn't substance and
each moment shatters
splatter my face on the edge of a coin
see which side lands upright
uptight deployed
exploiting my good nature
is a matter of choice
though each prospective partner
gives voice to this point
shun my daylight time walks
shower only in summer
encounters start to flounder
as I'm buried under

Recollections of Sleepovers Past

I lay on the inflatable mattress, eyes pointing toward the ceiling but not seeing it, focused on the conversation that took place between us.

We talked about our youths, mostly "guy stuff", mostly to pass the time.  It had been a long day and we were moments away from turning off the light for good and sleeping.  Something was familiar about this moment, something intimately real about the way we both lay there talking after a day of hanging out and goofing around.  It was just as it had been when I was a child staying over at a friends house, only he was nearly forty, and I was closing in on thirty.  We weren't children, not by any stretch, but our FRIENDSHIP was.  Suspended in animation by his youthful sensibilities and our mutual lack of responsibility, and in that moment it was real.  I was twelve again, before the fall of my innocence, before touching all the mature things that would spoil me.

Then the lights were out, and I was left alone in darkness, the only remnant of my companion the steady breathing that would soon turn to deep guttural snores.

In that moment I, too, remembered how it was in this moment in my distant past.  I had ALWAYS had trouble sleeping.  If I were twelve again I would have waited a half hour or so then asked him if he were still awake, if he wanted to talk some more, wanted to play.  The day would be wasted, but I wasn't done with it, wasn't ready to let go of all the fun I was having.  For when the morning comes, I'd be off to my home again, off to the grim reality of living in poverty and having no connections with those I called family.  Only now, in the present, in the NOW I had no family to return to.  I had a cat, a friendly one,  but a cat all the same.  And though she needed me in the way family needs each other, she couldn't respond in kind with soothing words and gentle handling of my issues.  My family was gone.

Not in the sense that they had passed on, but that I had passed on from them.  The connection we once bore was gone forever.  And there WAS a connection, though in my flights of fantasy I saw myself as the black sheep among black sheep.  They were so close, most within the city limits, yet I couldn't find the will to make that connection again.  At family events they  made me nervous somehow, as if surrounded by a pack of wild dogs that could strike out at any moment if provoked.  They had given me reason to feel this way, yet the feeling was still, in its heart, unreasonable.  Even when they reached out a kind hand, I looked on at it with suspicion.

No amount of time would heal those wounds.  I was truly and finally alone...