Binary Code

So it's been 3 months
Since you left me
And this must be my mandatory
Expected contribution
To the myriad of songs or poems
Or utterances
About life post "You"

I made a conscious decision to remove
Any likeness
Any tangible form you once held
And honestly, the worst
By a mile
Was deleting photos -
Those digital representations
The 0s and 1s arranged so beautifully
That represented what we shared
And what we stood for.
I passed by one of you
Laying on your side
In bed
A close up on your beautiful,
Transcendent face.
It was that face I saw more often than not
In the early morning
When you rose.
It is how I will remember you by.
It was not,
(Full admission here)
Your constant reality,
But you'll go down in my life's story
As that set of eyes
And that smile.

Even that photo
Got the delete button.

Strange how I can feel so much
While looking at a screen,
Looking at 0s and 1s
Arranged so beautifully.
So, post-"you" me:
He's healthy
And getting healthier
I will not usher in my 30s,
A decade where I am supposed to fully ripen as a human,
With the reckless abandon
That I took on for 15 years previous.
I am still twinged with profound sadness
About all that lost potential
All that love that seems to evaporate in this heat.
I arrive at the same conclusion every few days,
Spurned on by a sighting of something Texas,
Or Upper West Side,
Or Los Angeles,
Or the like.
The conclusion of course,
Is that I'm not fine
And I'm not okay
I'm deeply wounded
And any outward development I make
Both physically
And with making new acquaintances
Only points towards an impending date I have
With facing the reality and truth
That I wanted to marry you
And all the necessary changes and adjustments required to so
I wanted babies
And to live that photo -
The 0s and 1s
Arranged so beautifully -
Nearly every morning.
it was surreptitiously taken from me
For reasons I know not yet how to comprehend.
I barrel towards a day of reckoning
And my hope is that I will have progressed,
Lost so much weight
Slept with enough women
Made enough new friends
Captured enough of my spirituality
That I can absorb the sucking chest wound
That was our demise.
I am comforted by the fact
That my concerns now lie in my own well-being
I mean this sincerely:
I don't care how you're doing
And what you're up to
I certainly don't wish you ill-
I don't wish you anything-
Which to me is worse.
I will soon enough have my Reckoning
Where I touch the fire of all the things you burned
And on that day,
You'll have a Conference Call
Or a Staff Lunch
Or a Happy Hour
Or a Memo to Type
It'll be a Tuesday or something -
And I will be Alive
I will experience real and true pain
And I will spit on the scorched earth
As you become an also-ran in my story
Relegated to a singular memory
Of beautiful 0s and 1s
Arranged on a screen
That grows ever foggy.

For those Walking Purposefully

For those Walking Purposefully

Your pounding aching legs know well

What these kindred spirits mean

When they say so fervently

NEVER
STOP

MOVING

My Prayer

Let my outside Match my inside
Let my Inside become More Resolute
Let my spirit return to my Tangible Self
Let them unite into a more empowered Living

#4

A Profound Sadness
Comes over me
When I think of
Never being draped
In your Yellow Curls again
How you kissed me
As if it were a gulp
A great swallowing
Of my essense
And your saliva
Covered my Lips
Cheeks
Chin
Everywhere
The way an Infant
Eating ice cream
Cares not where it goes
And my hand
In back of your head
My lungs Breathing
Gulping
Your essence
And two pairs
Of Very Different Eyes
Meet in a Passing Glance
as we undress.

Socrates

I am bound;

Because I believe so strongly

That all we really possess

Is the present tense

And all the principles - 

Each noble truth

That We discover in this Condition -

I am bound, therefore,

Despite every thinking Man's word

Every spiritual Man's feeling

Despite every apathetic Man's indifference;

Lo! I am bound

With such Profound conviction

To drink this Hemlock!

I love you forever

Fully

And without condition

And I am bound by that

Even if you tell me to stand down

My love is never angry

Never ashamed

And it is as real as the Present Tense

So I am bound

Irrevocably so

To drink

To die

To feel

To know

That my love was impervious

To any of my former trappings

That my love was perfected

By its own death

By the bitter taste

The room temperature cold

The runny, floral accents

Of the Hemlock.

My Loss, the Bengal Tiger

My Loss
Is a Bengal Tiger
Raging
Biting
Clawing
Attention-occupying
And only after weeks
Of the biting
I realize
The true nature
Of unconditional love:
That the animal bites
Are a direct and mutilating
cause and effect
Of me holding his chain.
I must release him
Let him escape
Forgive
And never stop loving.

Real Freedom

Real freedom:
Realizing 
In the event of cataclysm
Or natural disaster
I would be content
To step off this train
This delayed
Noisy train
And with my bag
Shorts
And comfy shoes
Walk the earth
Persisting 
To be constantly present.

Wake up each and every day
And before you leave your home
Tell yourself in no uncertain terms
Be good and nice
To everyone today
No
Matter
What.
Be patient especially.

Now go do greatness.

As the love they shared for each other
began to flood in,
at that very moment
the soldiers stood down
to let the lovers embrace,
And a contrite and airy spring rain
began to fall
and embrace his bare skin.
The skies then parted
as the lovers did,
and the baptism of sorts was complete.

I'll never forget
Where I was
And what I was wearing
Doing
Seeing
Smelling
The Day
All my lyrics became
So surreptitiously
True.