Regret

I can see her, even now.
Dancing in that summer storm,
starry eyed and reckless,
chasing rainbows in the dark.

The moon hung low,
gazing out with a macabre red glow.

Rain hissed like steel chains crashing down from Peter’s gates,

refracting the lunar hue ‘til all we knew was awash in rose.

Traipsing ‘cross those Louisiana river slopes,
I spied her from the hillside:
A fleeting sprite, drenched in white,
illuminating our hallowed nook in the Mississippi.
The crabgrass and clay were soft, warm against my bare feet,
sinking slowly into the earth with each step…


It’s difficult to find yourself at a moment like this.
Expanses of time when you’re grasped and held firm,
Wholly present on the cusp of an eternal zenith.
All that was, is, will or won’t
culminates here in plain sight -
the event horizon,
our Opus Infinitum.

Of course, this is true of every moment really
but to actually feel it,
to recognize and cherish it…?
I don’t believe I have ever felt so real.
Before or since.

Which is oh-so-funny now,
considering...

A lantern hung beneath the old willow tree.
Its branches stretched out over the river with grace and care,
our only hope of solace from the storm.

The rain pounded that rusty beacon,
scattering drops of gold to the wind.
Twirling about she seemed to lift clear off the ground,
swept up in a cyclone of lights.
The Queen ‘O’ the Wisps,
charming her court,
wooing princes
and beckoning a fool.

I have never witnessed such rage and wonder unfold in a dance.
It was hypnotizing.
Like she was speaking in tongues and I understood every word,
I could hear her hidden tune.
A sirens song played for only we two.

My god she was alive!
Truly living.
With such intensity that, even in the downpour,
her hair set aflame,
caught the night and shot out across the sky,
wild laughter in tow,
filling every space left between us
& echoing still.

I remember how my eyes felt,
beaming in smile, ready to burst.
As if I held some secret surprise,
waiting to reveal,
teasing the notion.


But between us there were no secrets.
I had none, anyway.
She told me once,
in that slow drawn out drawl of hers,
“Ya know how…some people,
they wear their hearts on their sleeve
or maybe they got a…a chip on their shoulder or sumthin like that?
Well, you’ve got everything
right there on your face.
Christ, every time I look at ya
I gotta wade through it all before my eyes even see you!”

She always did though…
maybe.

It’s a funny thing, truth.
People like to get philosophical about it.
What a joke!
What could they possibly know?
Stumbling around, fact and fiction swirled up like oil and vinegar in their fishbowl brains.

Now, I’m not talkin’ about silly things like where you been or who with.
No…I’m talkin’ REAL truth.
The kind…
The kind you’d rather bury 20 feet deep and pour a cement foundation over,
build a house on top and burn the whole cursed thing down while still inside.
…So no one ever goes near it again and you do not have to live with it another day.

Life is a spider web of stories,
one strand over another,
connecting us all.
True or false they are the only things we actually find interesting about each other.
You can keep yours,
let me keep mine.

The Dixie heat wrapped and held us,
closing in from all around,
words & bones, entombed in a moment.
Beautiful though it was,
if not that day,
then every moment since,
I drown in that river.

We had stripped ourselves down,
bare to all the wilds,
disarmed and earnest.
Our midnight debut,
a tragedy,
anything but new.

It’s strange, the things we remember,
often false,
incomplete renderings of faded images and ideals.
Reality is so impermanent,
vapor trails, dissipating in air.
Dreams are the true monoliths of time,
stalwart beacons, towering above the fog.

Her name I’ve not spoken for what has seemed a lifetime.
Though the void left to me was more just…time,
faceless, countless time.
An endless crevasse I could never cross.

I don’t know if I could tell you what became of us,
I’m not sure she would’ve approved.
But I am very certain I wouldn’t tell you,
even if she had,
for I’ve torched every corner of this house
and am lying.

Finally.