I was never your bridge over troubled waters….
I missed out on the fire in my heart
that would have given me the strength
to do what I should have done…
Too often I took the roads less traveled,
but I had no guide back then to suggest.…
I had only guesses and wonders and yearnings
for those things that I didn’t yet know about,
those things that I didn’t yet understand,
and I paid little worry for them then.
I had no words, no names for those things,
only confusion and wonder
and a feeling of being lost
as I wandered unfamiliar roads,
guessing by the angle of the sun
that the way I was moving was correct.
I had nothing to proudly display,
nothing to recommend me,
and I was too easily swayed
to do what I thought was right,
though I knew in my heart,
oh, so many years later,
that what I did, and didn’t do,
was far from right.
I caved and gave up two full lives,
lives that had been born to live,
but were suffocated on a Wednesday evening.
Then I turned and traveled on,
alone,
and accepted that,
as I had always accepted the sad and the painful;
those bits of life that rubbed and chaffed,
causing bruises and burns and aches and tears,
while I pretended not to notice the changes….
I had brought them on myself, after all,
is basically the way I saw it.
Pathetic reasoning,
which never did serve to make the wounds heal,
and I carried the scars and scabs forever.
They are still here.
I can see them still…
I can feel them still…
I can hate them still.
I stopped crying long ago,
but all too often,
all the time,
I hold back the tears that threaten to fall…
because I would not know how to handle that today
or yesterday or tomorrow….
There are so many “what if’s” that trace my steps,
following me down my paths,
accompanying me,
reminding me of how it wasn’t,-
how it was never to be,
how it could have been.
How it should have been.
I never knew back then that I was beaten down
long before I began,
and would never have thought such a thing possible,
but life would not let me open that one door.
Those I trusted turned on me,
turned my future to a long string of stumbles.
Oh, I eventually made it, I guess,
because I am here, now, today….

but at what cost?
I don’t know if I am stronger for it all,
or weakened,
or saddened,
or hurt or angered,
or hollowed out like an old tree long ravaged by time,
so very close to falling in a strong wind…
Unable to see a plan
or a way to wrap it all up,
so that it can be put up on a shelf
where it will gather dust and be finally forgotten.
Some things must, I suppose, remain —
as guides, signposts, trail markers,
little dots of history to show
the jagged and cratered parts once walked…
the close missteps where it might have come undone,
but for the humour of Someone,
I was made to continue without having to fight
the resistance I was trying to ignore.
So I am here, now,
Still just as confused as I was,
still just as hurt and lost and angry as I was,
but no more determined to right all the wrongs
that I once thought should have been righted,
though at the time I had no understanding
of what, or how, or why
any of that was to be a painful memory
for the remainder of my life…

I have gone from there to here,
carroming from side to side,
From beginning to an end not yet in sight,
causing me to flinch with each impact,
as it jars memories I thought long buried.
I will turn now to drugs of a sort
which will not help to fade the back stories,
because I know too well the details
that are barely shown.
I know that I could continue this,
almost forever,
but it is likely better to close.
I don’t like it this way,
but there is no other decision to be made.
I have wandered here a bit too long,
and the echoes coming to me
smite my ears too well.

~peace….

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