Forever Alive

My poetry will die with me...

Yet, as the greedy and unspent tenderness swells,

All I want to do is shout my pain out into the world,

And just this once for someone to listen.

The unlikelihood of anyone hearing is clear to me.

All that I will accomplish is tearing my own heart apart with my voice.

It will echo from the silence around and come back to die inside me.

The entry wound, not a careful cut of a knife, but a messy gash from a bursting missile.

So I rejoice in being wise and kind,

Though what I look for is being loved, as I once was.

I ache for that long ago feeling

When I was the center of someone's universe.

As I cry now, there may yet be hope for me,

For when I write, I know I am still here.

And I can gather all that my thirsty and tender lips long for,

And make it stay forever alive as words on this page.