Diary (draft)

[Written 11 April 2009]

The ink has not faded,
I recognize the handwriting,
i know it is mine, determined,
i can mimic how I held the pen,
my words
still cry out with
Childish anguish
I wrote perfect poetry for you –
Sublime, fatal and unreal,
You, darkened by the sun,
Unspoiled and unrealized, poems
on a page – unsung,
Laugh lines now wound
your eyes – I presume,
I presume too much
from these memories I exhumed,
The years have gone up
In smoke, written
And re-written by my girlish hand,
Grasping at nothing:
A stubbed out cigarette
Reeks of my mistakes
– I pause, lose
the cockiness
of habit
Feeling love and hate again
In equal measure –
Unadulterated,
Uncompromised, I am
Basking in my shining idealism
Transported here, pressed
Between these pages
Unscathed and free of charge,
A decade has passed, but it does not
Resonate. I am spinning,
Tumbling down the rabbit hole,
But -

- there is a voice
on the other line, I am
in the present
again, hearing the voice
that I love – now,
I know I love,
I know love now
In this inescapable present
Where I have taken root,
With the one I love,
in this inescapable
present, I would know
him, seek him
anywhere, blind,
in the dark,

I would offer him
my imperfect poetry.