renaming remaining

new leaves – new leaf

old leaves – old leaf

would I have ever wanted you

if you had never wanted me?

new leaf – old leaf

did you always have something up your sleeve?

new leaves become old leaves

I wear my transparency as inked sleeves

dark lines that follow me to the grave

a new leaf becomes an old leaf

as over and over

the lifting of your sheath

lends to weathering

and the weakening of the tethering

the tether that held me to you

that restricted my length of wander

that protected me from danger

is what made me hate you

but ultimately much later

i grew to like you, despite you

in spite of you

i revel in the right to despise you

call off the reprisal

as i stick to my refusal

and adhere to my denial

the queen of this river that grows wider and wider

 

the frustration of desire

the revelation of a fire

that can’t be encouraged to flare

but will only tame down to embers

as you and I become members

of a group that fails to deliver

and we announce with lips about to quiver

a vision of us together

and we go hither

and yond

and beyond

anything else that leaves a taste bitter

and allow only those things sweet

that make us feel better

you look for inspiration in my gaze

albeit golden

still remains

an eye towards the good old haze

of that which came before

and somehow sustains

sticking itself in the refrain

of the chorus, of the song

that plays without a steady beat

but plays on repeat

only a few notes now linger

like a bee that’s lost its stinger

i have been stung without anyone there to finger

no one to blame

and so it remains

 

my stage my choice

to prosper or not

to prosper or not

to grow perturbed

at the steadily diverged nature of our duress

the cataclysmic quality of our distress

pressure builds

towers loom

and ever increasing is the presence of doom

in my mind i move from room to room

space to space

time to erase

what you’ve done here

what tears you’ve caused here

Although I hold dear

the fear you inspired

because it taught me how to become rewired

and lent to an invocation of new thoughts

oh so many pennies wasted on my insufficient plots

at least now my heart has released so many torrid knots

of confusion and quiet delusion

now i see so much more clearly

what it is that i do not know

and may never really know