Poems of lust, regret and the "Fever called living."
I would that pleasure descended into pain
and then rose back into pleasure once again
in a perpetual oscillation.
In both I understand my emotions.
For emptiness lurks in equilibrium
and sets hair triggers on the snares of boredom.
I spring the trap to glimpse satisfaction
and am strung just above oblivion.
Staggering on an atrophied reason
through a miasma of resignation,
I find and light the torch of conviction.
And run.
Emptiness revels behind every door,
gorging herself on the countless corpses
of every instance of my cowardice.
‘Neath each door, a dim glow promises more
when my conviction’s guiding light falters.
I hear her laugh, an echoing whisper,
“How many times have you been here before?”
Exhausted I sought rest in compromise.
I knew it could only metastasize,
but I dissociated my demise.
And now
I fear this is no longer a labyrinth,
for casuistry had become cyclic.
Ignorance is no longer complicit
in the fraudulence of expedience.
Yet this tragic familiarity
was the thread leading back to honesty:
the travailing threshold to congruence.
She whispers sweetly now, drawing nearer
as my only escape becomes clearer:
I rush to the door that frames a mirror
and push.
In silence It sat between us,
damning me for my ambivalence.
I kept a knife against Its throat
though I exalted Its existence.
What will was left began to wane
as hours poured from an artery.
Eclipsed in her indifference,
insignificance would swallow me.
Your implicit ultimatum
left me desperate for an absolute
that she would never offer me.
My hope only served to convolute
the tangled strands of lies and truth,
when twisted with my misconception,
slipped the noose around my frail reason
and filled my lungs with resignation.
Another dawn could never break
to grace her smile to my memory.
Acceptance like a tempest cast
me on the shores of reality.
I surrendered my last recourse
to the cold grip of the second hand.
In silence It read the verdict
that fell with the final grain of sand.
The pain of one last goodbye still
pales to one more indifferent embrace:
so as I twisted my blade in Its
throat, I memorized her darling face.
Blind to the blood that marked my hands,
unaware of Its lifeless body,
she bid farewell as we embraced:
the sole fruition of my folly.
In silence It rested with us
staining the sheets with pools of crimson.
Putrescence pervaded our dreams
and immortalized my transgression.
A slender form slips through the crowd,
careless of the curious eyes,
like the pale moon slips past the clouds,
she beckons my gaze to the skies.
Her elegant scarlet tresses
frame an ivory decollete,
and conceal her furtive glances
as she slowly dances my way.
For a moment we turn away
– she lets her verdant, velvet dress
brush past my hands as if to say,
“All that’s left is for us to guess.”
If only I could write your name
along side our sin,
condemning you into the shame
you abandoned me in.
But the worm of retribution
can swear no loyalty
and the toll of its infection
will eventually
be taken from the innocent.
Remorse is poisonous
– how I hope yours is sufficient
to blight his forgiveness.
My helpless rage has run its course,
leaving this bitter yield:
a dream of your suspended corpse
above the Potter’s Field.
Let us elude reality,
if only for a moment,
yet revel in the secrecy
of this sanctum
till its consigned to memory,
or the roots have drunk our blood
and we’re known by these words only.
If my father was a stranger
and met the man I am today,
he would swear I was the mirror
of a past he had locked away.
I would have gone anywhere
and done anything
for a chance to talk to you.
That was years ago
– back when I used to think
chances were infinite.
Now I do what I can to catch a glimpse
as you walk past.
I think you’re avoiding me now.
The clock strikes 5
and I don’t see you by the bench
where we reconnected a few years ago.
I wish you understood
the pain of being avoided
for a simple glance.
Not a word nor an approach.
Not even a smile.
Maybe you knew my stomach turned
when our eyes locked.
How many years have I wasted
trying to be someone else?
How many years have I wasted
wishing I had taken a chance?
I just want to change.
At what point did I become
the stranger in the mirror?
At what point did I become
what I tried so hard to avoid?
I just wanted to change.
But when I crossed that bridge
I tried not to look back.
And when I crossed that bridge
I burned it behind me.
I was never who I wanted to be
and I lost myself along the way.
I was never who I wanted to be
and now I know I never will.
Crawling, slipping, scrambling
through this forest of memories
in fierce and frantic searching
for the path I should have taken.
A.Nevarez Poetry 