There are times where I can't say what's wrong.  It's not that I don't know.  It's not that I don't have the words.  The words themselves feel dangerous, as if I'd be admitting more than I'd be saying.  Maybe so.  Lately, my emotions have been running some kind of marathon that I was unaware existed; tensions flare and explode, only to revive, reassess the wreckage, and begin again--differently, but effectively.

 

Something tells me that there's no way to win.  But 'win' isn't even the right word.  Escape is just a poor man's excuse for freedom, after all.  Liberty that is stolen, mindlessly, is destined to burn itself out--imploding in the echo of realistic recognition.  Or maybe sputtering out, like a candle with too short a wick.  Everything's designed for a reason, a testament to something--a cause and effect, outside of a solution.  Every smile is a method of remembrance, blazing passion or smokey remorse.  The truth is, some things refuse to be named.  And others have more than one face, and a dozen aliases.  Truth is founded on sight.  Sight is founded on experience, emotion, and perspective.  This, of course, insists that everything is relative.  And that's, as I've said before, dangerous.

 

I'm so close to the fire that I can no longer see it.  Have you ever been there?  Just a promise away from some raging precipice, a place where dreams are submerged, and resurrected, in the same dark well.  You could say that expression is about finding the right words.  But that...is shortsighted.  It's about a willingness to break apart the world, if only for a single glance at the stars on the other side. 

 

In a manner of speaking, on one level of interpretation, my heart is missing.  Yes.  But it's not lost.  It didn't wander away when no one was looking, or remove itself from my presence while I was sleeping.  It was sent, given, bidden.  Offered.  It is kept, neither well nor unwell.  It simply is, against the backdrop of wasted, and wasting, chaos.  It simply is.  And that, no matter the circumstance or final outcome, is beautiful.  Even in a sightless way.  Even when you linger on the edge of understanding the view is still marvelous.  Breath-stealing.

 

But the rest?  These things that weave in and out of moments that refuse to concede to a cease fire?  A white flag causes laughter, already assuming a joke.  The rest almost casually falls apart, slipping through the silence like water, emerging to the sound of harsh words, whispered almost politely.  You might not realize its full grasp, catching only a glimpse here and there.  If that's the case, later, you can feign surprise.  I suspect that it's all staged, anyway.  The tenor and tone is different, remade, and, with assassin-precision, well-executed. 

 

Whatever you may think, it's not about you, now, baby.  Underneath this, these unearthly moments, caught between this devil and the next, I will not deny the confusion.  I will not deny anything.  I still harbor my own secrets, after all.  No, I won't argue against my own reflections of action and inaction.  I will not say that I don't wonder.  That I don't love.  Or that I'm not unflinchingly angry at this siege of stolen promise.  There are things beyond even my reach.  A denial inherent in some beliefs.  A trusting defense--but whose?  Clearly, my hands empty, self-preservation is not my most prized intention.  But that's another story.  Or another world in this one.

 

Yes, you are a part of it, but you are not the whole. 

 

Instead, this is about everything else in me, and around me.  Surrounding me.  An invisible tidal wave destined, perhaps, to hush the fire.  But it's not the kind of fire you can easily kill.  I would assume that you would recognize that, but you're too close to your own reflection to see the fiber of another's.  But unrelenting, it all seems to wait for the most still moments, urged by some unseen force to desecrate what cannot be appreciated it.  And I watch, now, with strange, observant eyes.  I could pinpoint, with remorseless perfection, the flaws in this approach.  The incorrect way you turn your head, as if to smile at your next sacrifice.  Yes, I know that look.  It pretends starvation, while wearing a predatory skin.  And you don't realize the implications, the things you give away without giving them.  You can't reason out anything beyond your own knowing.

 

Perhaps that is the impasse.  Our impasse.  The crossroads where we meet, but never can seem to part from.  I could explain.  I could spell it out in perfect time, with a rhythm that you would understand.  I could tell you these secrets, reveal a naked reckoning.  Or...perhaps I already have.  It all rests on you.  I do hope you paid proper attention.