Tag Archives: regret

Reflections on a Vial

I am full and beautiful thus.
Full, I am purpose attained,
remembered not for what I am,
but by what I contain,
the service I provide.

I will not be discarded.

I am used, half gone now and somber.
Used, I am shaped by the void left behind,
thought of not for what I provide,
but for how little of me remains,
lingering on the coming regret.

I will not last long.

I am empty and bitter of the absence.
Empty, I am fragile with sharp secrets,
avoided not for the squandered potential,
but the risk inherent in things that shatter,
broken even when intact.

I will hold your reflection, still.

Vagabond

Nostalgia is a weary hat in a lost town.
It speaks soberly of altered states,
and doesn’t belong there,
                              but it did-

                                           it did.

The brim is warped leather,
      the crown, sulking against the skull beneath,
with deep canals born of frowns and smiles
          indiscernible from those that rest

                                             on the shoulders

                of endless hours that bridge the days,
          swallow the years
and sever the link to innocence.

          It is a native-born traveler,
  returning as family,
but with the wear of life upon it,
            like a refugee denied asylum,
                                        home again
                a stranger in a strange land.

A Lament

I regret the tragedies that broke me,
the quiet moments after, parsing thoughts,
finding solace when I should have suffered,
and, at last, forgetting the lesson learned.

I regret mysteries I did not see,
those theaters of war where I should have fought,
the responsibilities I deferred,
and not recognizing what I had earned.

I regret not letting my anger be,
becoming the anxiety it sought,
not heeding the advice that was conferred,
and ignoring the peace that I so yearned.

I regret thinking time was like the sea,
capricious waves in which we were all caught,
a purity otherwise unperturbed,
and not an ocean, overfished and spurned.

The Fall

Gone

   

         gone



thin clouds

                the song of sunlight
            muted without the praise of a place to settle,

      kneading itself into the billowing cotton-

   like panic trapped in a parachute

hurtling towards the ground






                           wondering

                     where it all went wrong.

Whispers

Rude
               cracks
rolling
               waves
sharp ends
               break skin
a kindness
               from within
sold like lye
               and animal fat
after a hard rain
               what we say now
can’t be spoken again
               though the mouth will trace
its memory in the silence