catharsis

the smell of the spice carried on the breeze from the oscillating fan brought the sweet unattainable flavor to my attention… it would be months before i could savor the craving. rum is wonderful pain. i took you somewhere, or nowhere… and we tried again to see the familiar. that wasn’t the last time i saw you, but i think it was the last time you saw me.

the memory i will forever keep as the one defining you to me is sitting while the constant waves beating the shore reminded us both that we would never rest, but the light from the beacon piercing the fog was a comfort. i’ll keep you there.

i never knew how far away together could be.

there’s words to be known and time to be understood, but i don’t know if i think it will be something seen. i think, if it happens, it will just appear again and we will know the lost years did not destroy our family. i know you would think it trite for me to say i have cried for the lost time.

i still reach out, and i’m still turned away. your friendship was freely offered, and then quickly rescinded time and again when i failed to live up to the expectations you never shared. i’m sorry you’re lonely, but i didn’t leave.

it was like this.
and old man, who should have been young… should have been able to touch the stars that he aimed to grasp for his kind of brilliance was rarely seen… he wasted away. the cancer ate him from the inside and the sounds of his cries still echo. i know he rests in peace, but i would have more belief if it hadn’t taken years of decay to make him see his wife and his child for the first time. he was 46. i’m no longer so far removed, and i’m watching the decay start again. it starts in the eyes, when you can’t see in, and you always look down.

next comes the denial.

then alone, the bitterness eats away. that’s the cancer that took him.

that’s how it was.

so when i say that i’m waiting for you to prove that you’ll achieve what you’ve promised, take that as love. i’m believing that you will choose to live.

don’t let me down. it may be selfish to say that i can’t watch the cancer again, but it’s true.

i see a man with a light, forging the way through a dark forest that has lived in myth, only to burn at your hand. i see a lost soul finding the one he’s sought, to find that he’s the one who was lost. and there you are, filling the large footsteps you’ve left by your dreams, and the worlds you’ve painted with your rhythms and rhymes you will finally believe.