You

You aren’t the one to blame.

You see me emerge from the path,
riddled with its piercing thorns,
my face marred with cuts of blood,
and you offer a quiet place for healing.

You lay your life open for me,
watching me flounder the rest of the way,
yet you keep love from crumbling
into the trodden dust,
where the footprints of my struggles
crisscross like the stampede
of some lost troop marching
into the perils
of a distant and useless battle.

You see the hollow mask of my joy
breaking at the edges,
where the strain of my pain slips
from beneath the glossy form,
and you shed salty, diamond tears
that speak of the beauty only
an angel of innocence could know.

Your heart glows warm with the deepest love,
yet you remember how I pushed you away,
as I fought to keep the keys
that kept the jewels of my misery safe,
and you clutch the soft pillows
when the moonlight sifts through the windows
onto the edges of their nocturnal curves,
hoping that someday, the tatters
of my foolish amibition
will finally wither to nothing.

You had to turn away when I left
because you knew that if you followed,
I might have hurt you without realizing,
but the dreadful images of what I would face
hurt you anyway…how I failed to see.

You couldn’t avoid the feeling sometimes,
like you might not be able to
get through another moment,
a brilliant rainbow of colors
drenching the wide open fields
of your sublime thoughts,
and the frustration was all the worse
because my eyes, wrapped
in the blindfolds of the past,
refused to see the bliss
that dances like a child
in your imagination.

You aren’t the one to blame, you had to go,
You found eternity elsewhere,
and my presence became that
among the wandering ghosts that drift
from time to time in a stray dream,
but I wanted to thank you,
as a gentle voice in the wind,
for showing me once,
a tender slice of heaven.

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