Dark Poetry Prose Poetry March 24, 2003 Dark Poetic Prose

3-24-03 monday 9:20pm brick NJ

how'd we ever find each other
through all those other people?
how'd we ever manage to love one another
through all those barriers
these hearts like to keep?

so it might not be a sunrise
that makes the world feel whole again,
it may be not be a reason to exist,
but it's still the best of any of
the reasons that i've collected.

how'd we ever happen
to have anything in common
all these worlds apart?
how'd we ever manage to
touch anything deeper than flesh
through all the layers of protection
these lives have built up?

i guess i can't say it
just the way i feel it
in my heart,
i guess my words fail me
each and every time
my heart makes that same request
to have itself heard -
i try, i keep writing,
but i don't think there is
any language for the
beat of a heart that
loves this much.

i should go, but never leave;
i should stay on the outskirts
where you know i'm there,
but without intruding;
but i'm not that selfless,
intent is not enough,
these days the
sentiment doesn't carry
as much as it used to;
the years don't grow kinder
as they pile up,
they just gather that
many more reasons
not to love.

so how did i ever?
why did i bother
knowing, always knowing.
i always knew.
so why did i ever?
why could it never -
i don't know, but that
it couldn't i always knew,

so how did we ever
manage to find a haven
outside of the constraints
love will often imply?
how did we ever manage
to extract this friendship
out of love's absense?
and a way to love different?
perhaps not better,
but perhaps of value no less,
maybe just the culmination
of the fear these two hearts
have collected, shaken together
in a cocktail suitable for drinking,
a drug to keep us just unsober enough
that we can still love it even when,
it refuses to love us.