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By Ali Date: 2007 Feb 12 Comment on this Work [[2007.02.12.10.13.9468]] |
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A third-party pretender, I scan the silence for the break--a small abandoned ripple against pages of no consequence. My past, in my hand, a fee for stepping into place, for speaking from both sides, swallowing yesterday's tyrant, as if this pitch-dark parade were my own illusion. But this exercise of hobbled futility has taught me well-- I was whisper tongued trepidation, a casualty of lies I helped build, and then erase-- an act that hid me from my own authenticity: I was, then, too willing to execute my own heart, and too unthinking to salvage it. I will not steal your past in exchange for another's; I borrowed your guise, adopted what was close to my own, once upon a thrice-committed mistake. Sightless, I saw the wake I knew once, myself, felt the break I once was dealt, and perhaps my penalty was this, for loving outside the bounds of logic, repeating the sameness of difference-- a rare kind of Promethean destiny. I, the jailer of myself, marvel at my own mistaken trespass, a fragile shelter of things remembered, footprints of existence that tell a treacherous tale, indecencies that I own, and refuse to deny-- understand me, get thee behind me, for I know exactly what I do, and I will not ask forgiveness for it, I will not pray for regret; no, I do not humble at the sight of risk, and I only offer love-- who are you to question that? |