I wrote a thousand lines for you,
but only needed one
Subtraction is consistent
once remembrance has begun
Heroes’ journeys that we follow,
loss like bones inside our throats
Secrets sewn in linty pockets,
lies like fleas in furry coats

Yet, I’m sick of vain analogies,
poetry as sport
Messages we synchronize,
simple wisdom we distort
Have I always been this shallow?
Searching for the perfect rhyme?
Keeping time with dusty shadows,
turning reasons on a dime

Yes, my silence is oppressive;
logic leaves me with regrets
Reading epitaphs of choices,
failures that I can’t forget
Wishes satisfy existence;
darkness breeds the need to hide
Still, I have a vain proclivity
to justify my foolish pride

But these are 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 the lines
we’re drawing (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 the flesh, we live without

They say to train the child
in the direction 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 yourself

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;
Seems my dreams they reigned supreme
There was no death approaching,
safe in 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 were nothing but a bane
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
From New Book 5