Oh, Never Mind

 Oh, Never Mind

(“If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?” Psalm 130:3)

Until the final word has been sung,
until the final syllable rolls of your tongue,
there will be little to write until the listening is done.

I etched every mistake like a stylus into clay;
I memorized them; I kept them in a diary high
on the shelf hoping no one would find them, no one
would redefine them, and, at the end of the day
someone would right them to banish my pretense.

Although I wrote them, they were meant only for me,
but somehow, they were released into the ether where
daylight caught them on the fly. They had been only intended
to come out at night when fewer eyes kept watch.

They were a record of my illnesses, the symptoms well defined.
They were a mirror of my inconveniences, a probe into…

Trying to describe it here after all these years may sound
like a metal spoon pounding a kettle to coax get the tea to come out.
But what I think I hoped was that someone would read it all,
and, without excusing at at all, would absolve me of everything
written or forgotten,
and treat me like the whole thing had been a farce,
like the words had never existed,
like the story was far more nuanced than the
ledger I kept them in.

the eternal eyes removed all doubt and looked away
without a single glance at my exact notions. The
party started hours ago, and I thought I was disinvited.
Until someone whispered that the party was for me.