Scratch That

Scratch That

I would have opened more to you
after you knocked on my window earlier than sunrise.
But, with slumber heavy on my limbs, my eyes
ran behind the thoughts still twisted around last night’s dream.

I would have let you in, let you have your say,
and, after you stayed and understood, we might have
taken a chance at another 20 years of friendship.

But I closed my window, out of reflex, out of weary
habits of explaining why I preferred it quietly shut;

Almost all the time.

And, since it was my window after all, I hoped you
would understand.

Here’s another thing, and I hate to explain,
or excuse my actions on the short-circuited synapses
in my brain…but the tapping on my bedroom window
only increases the flow of fiery impulses that squeeze my brain
like an iron-clad orange peel.

***
You’re not the first, though, maybe not the last. And,
I’ll certainly take my part.
***

No, scratch that. Don’t remember the previous lines.
Delete them, wipe them from your mind.

I am angry. I am boiling over. I want to pour wrath upon
every former friend who wished me dead…them dead to me.
I am tired of the punches unreturned. I am tired of the lies
that set up roadblocks to beauty they would have been a spring of joy
rising up to heal this hopeless heart.

Behind my back, oh the obituaries they wrote; short, to the point;
“He was here, He did, He died.”
And my insignificance floats further back in time so that my anger

Seems entirely out of line. Beware the conflagration of a heart
never allowed to speak its peace. Instead, with every intention
of making me zero; and every false apology reserving a hero’s welcome
for their consideration

Only put more kindling on a fire that could have burned out quickly
in a friend to friend bout of honesty. But, for some, broken rules

So much worse

Than broken hearts or cursed.