Cycles

Somehow the years spent licking the wounds 

Are just one away from the entire damaging span

A time highly-internal

Still experience abounds

Even now there's days I need convincing

Fear it's too good to be true

That there's nothing I could stand to offer someone who has grown as much as you 

You don't complete me or make me whole

Instead you embolden my fervorous search for a soul

Learning to build a foundation, not to fill in a hole

Blue eyes run through with such delight

Extremes of wonder in your childish sight

The man I'm sure was not crafted for me 

Not wrapped in vapid rose-toned fantasy

You've consistently been there, 

And I'll do the same

For another four years 

For forever and again 

Texas Florida Jersey Boy

I say it every year and every year it continues to be true

I will never need to check the dates that mark the week that I lost you

I feel it coming every time, sorrow deep in all my bones

As the anniversary grows ever-near of the awful things I said

Of the morning when I got the call and knew what would unfold

As I pulled off of DuPont highway and begged that God take me instead

Approaching ever-faster, a day forever marred by grief

And things neither of us can take back; the price that you and I have paid

A day set in a year that I was so resolved to join you

So now I'm nauseous from embarrassment, survivor's guilt, and shame

There has not been a single day where I haven't said your name

Lockdown

I could give it a value, down to dollars and cents. 

I could define it down to the seconds of time

The precise amount of physical effort

The number of words willingly exchanged 

I could compare the weight it bears with each item and column

Measured against monotonous tasks

It can even be shortened without too much effort

The smallest disruption to precious routines

Or acting in ways outside the confines 

...of the narrow scope of acceptable ways 

I could tell you the number of passing days 

I can spell out quite clearly what will and won't do

And what won't be done for you 

The events that are scheduled excluding the guest

Without the slightest notion that one might protest

The things that are the way they are and if you don't like it you can leave

The number of unscheduled visits admonished

The miles driven unbelieved

Perhaps it stands out, so stark and so rigid 

Because my love knows no borders but can be just as frigid.