And if I were to leave you here
While waiting for the moon
Looking past your life again
While justifying with my pen
Confessions in a book of notes
Letters that I never wrote
How dreams evaporate so fast
While living in the hungry past

And if I were to write some words
A list of what I failed to do
Missing links of you and me
Daisey chains we can’t undo
But flowers wilt and colors fade
As love redeems the times
And jealousy will cloud the eyes
Nurturing suspicious minds

And if I were to marry you
On bended knee, expose my heart
Lift you through a threshold portal
Promise you a love immortal
Gathered with our friends and families
Love unfolding here and now
Worshipping the ground you walk on
Lost inside our wedding vows

But if I fell from grace again
Ignored you while I chased my dreams
Forget the promises I made
Neglect the lips I once adored
Kindled flames with secret names
Wooing lovers by the score
We lose our love in silk degrees
Deception flows like poetry

And if we were to reconcile
Return to where we felt so high
Talk in circles through the night
Sacrifice our heart’s desire
Making up by falling down
A consequence of pride
Confess the black inside the night
The dark excess where shadows hide

And if I were a child again
Sneaking up on sleeping fools
Scaring them with squirting flowers
Stealing time and bending rules
Would you still consider me
The demon that I came to be
For innocence is no defense
Repeating evil history

And if I were to die today
Become a memory in your mind
A story that you tell the kids
A mystery that you left behind
For wordplay is the stuff of dreams
We twist reality, it seems
With clever lines, we pick and choose
To filter in the life we lose

And when you see beyond these words
As meaningless and nothing more
Just folly for the fans you flame
In ashes blown on winds of time
Decisions made like coins you toss
Or epitaphs in rust and moss
For loss becomes the ax you grind
When living life inside the mind

And would I be remembered then
A father or a sometimes friend?
The person who was always there
The man on whom you could depend
A loving dad, an awesome son
A million stars reduced to one
Who held you in those darkest times
And never dared to cut and run

And if I left this world today
Tongue-tied with the things I say
Correctly stated, words I said
In paper graves, we praise the dead
Make their words mean so much more
Like art created for the ages
Question marks for closing doors
Testaments to empty pages

Would you forgive the man I was
The loss I worshipped just because
Missing life while chasing fame
To rise above my shallow name
Priorities will make or break
As truth contrasts the breadth of lies
The love we make, the hearts we take
Mean nothing on the day we die

For memories will fade to black
The pain we purposely forget
The truth of love is bitter still
While drinking dregs of your regrets
Hedging bets on grand excess
Staking claims on paper graves
The fool is buried nameless
With the hollow words he saves

But there, I’ve rambled on too long
Redundant to a fault
The poet doth protest too much
With wounds to fill with salt
He turns it round to suit his poems
To blur the fractured facts
Gathering his stanzas filled
with sorrow, loss, and lack

TM DiSarro

©2024 TM DiSarro / MindScapes Publishing

Art by: Frederic Font

For a prompt by @glass_of_ mead on IG

@doctorbunnyslibrary on IG

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