I wrote a thousand lines for you
But only needed one
Subtraction is consistent
Once remembrance has begun
Heroes journey that we follow,
Loss like bones inside our throats
Secrets sewn in linty pockets,
lies like fleas in furry coats

I’m sick of vain analogies,
Poetry peformed as sport
Messages we’re synchronizing,
Simple wisdom we distort
Have I always been this shallow?
Searching for that perfect rhyme?
Keeping time with dusty shadows,
Turning reasons on a dime

Yes, my silence is oppressive;
Logic leaves me in regrets
Epitaphs for dying choices,
Failures that I can’t forget
Wishes satisfy existence;
Darkness breeds the need to hide
Searching for the child I once was
Swallowing my foolish pride

But these are only word disguises,
Open doors to slip into
Sleight of tongue to charm a serpent,
Points of fact we think are true
Lines of demarcation,
cards in sleeves we never show
Releasing only just so much,
But not enough to truly  know

When I was young, the world was full
of question marks and such,
Reaching for the stars and life
that I could never touch…
Wondering on wonderment
in fractured movie scenes
Monsters at my window,
Chasing angels in my dreams

Never was a time when I
was happy (where I was)
Oftentimes, we cross those lines
we draw out (just because)
Sometimes drawn with blood,
but often, words in shifting sands;
We compromise what we despise,
And pray with sweaty hands

But once again, my pen is rambling,
trying to make a point…
These words, like daggers,
stab and stick, the facts that we disjoint
Like marrow hides in bones,
We form our skeletons with doubt
Clinging to the dark things
and flesh we live without

They say to train the child
in the way that they should go
But I was never told
that when you’re old, you’ll never know
For everything you want
becomes like dust upon a shelf…
And life is mostly lost
creating versions of oneself

I wrote a thousand lines for you
but only needed one;
The past became my enemy,
The future came undone…
One day, my life was beaming;
Crystal daydreams reigned supreme,
There was no death approaching,
safe inside my childhood schemes

The answers were elusive,
and I wanted to know more
A mystery calling out to me
beyond my bedroom door…
And so I gathered pieces
of the knowledge I had gained;
Running from my future,
but it clearly was in vain

Leaving home to find myself
was futile in the end;
The person I was searching for
was nothing but pretend…
I missed the finer details
while I slept my life away;
Dreaming I was something more
than everything I say

For words became my bane (a stain)
upon a mildewed page;
Our stories, chains of rusted links,
inside a paper cage…
As hurt compounds with interest,
Loss becomes a state of mind;
And life repeats in cycles
much the same as misery rhymes

Now, days go by like sands of time
sifting through my hands;
While life that I aspired to
is nothing I had planned…
The eyes of age wax viciously;
I wish that I was young,
I wrote a thousand lines for you
But only needed one

TM DiSarro

©2025 TM DiSarro/ MindScapes Publishing

For an IG Prompt: “When we are young, we want to be old and for things to change. When we are old, we want to be young and for things to go back to the way they were.”

J.R. Rim