I Feel This Shroud

I Feel This Shroud

It happens too often and I feel this
shroud will never be lifted, a burning cloud
that has sifted every memory until they lose
all meaning.
Once I could count on the smiles across from me,
but now I look away wondering if I will be
unfurled.

I try to take it in stride and stop reading the thoughts
of nebulous origin. My worry does not serve me well.

Those old connections are frayed, and I stand displayed
as if everything inside me has been revealed without
my permission.
The mountains were steeper than I remembered
and my steps smaller upon the muddy ground.

I’d start a conversation, but I run out of words to say.
I’d sing an old song, but the copies are aged like autumn.
I’d play along just to fit in. I’d list my reasons for awe
that I once displayed like a badge on my forehead.
Tonight I just can’t see how this loneliness can
lift any time soon.

But I also am weary of writing these tomes of melancholy.
They are true, I know, but so are the bright eyes that
smile back when I was looking down at my feet.
My conversations end with awkward pauses hoping I
have not repeated
phrases from just a week ago. While others are
building planter boxes for a future Spring
I sit darkly writing and wishing something would bloom
again.

Do you remember when I could walk down the
hallway to the auditorium and everyone would know
my name? Now I saunter and wish I could feel the same
as those days at eye level when everyone was my friend.

I should take a nap and start this day over again.

The Fat Part of the Day

The Fat Part of the Day

(“I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6)

Whether it happens or not, the night won’t cloak
the starry hosts that dot the sky. In my mind there is
nothing that is disposable.

The possible lives outside the boundaries of theory
and prediction. The sheets of wind can strip away
every hindrance to creativity. It all grows as tall
as it can. It never throws away another chance to
mix the paints in pastel combinations. It is the
last to leave the party and the first to jot down the
poetry
that had been buried too deep to find with simply
a rational mind.

I did not plan on what to write, though I thought about it
through the fattest part of the day.
I can’t explain where the words come from,
and if I could no one would read, though they
might act like they understood.

Prizes lie on the horizon,
blue ribbons behind the throne,
accolades of innocence just
waiting to be interpreted. The impetus
is unclear.

Today I started with my heart pacing,
my head throbbing,
my memory hoping for another word
of reassurance
before the afternoon waned toward the dusk.
I cannot do what I wish I could,
I do what I wish I could not,
and the
no man’s land
between the two
feels like the stagnant ponds that settle
between the confluence of conscious and
spiritual. I plan to explore this soon.