Someone New

For what seems like an eternity, from my hospital stay in 1998 until now, save those few months I dated Jaime, I intermittently wrote to a "Someone New." The faces changed, and I thought I changed with them. I was wrong. Even though the bulk of my work between 1998 and 2003 was dedicated to Christine, I always knew the pointless and vain nature of my writing. Christine wasn't a person, just as I am not a person. She's a lie I tell myself, and I'm the monster who believes it. I look around, and see a sea of people, with none willing to walk alongside me. Little notes with tiny verses dedicated to only moments were my hopes and prayers (That's back before Prester Bane shut down my ability and opportunity to pray). In the middle, for nearly six months, I wrote a large quantity of bad poetry to Jaime, and a few very good portions of what I thought would be my third long-form poem: "Princess Black and Yellow". That was beautiful poetry, but I burned and purged it all. I wasn't going to finish something so unwanted by everyone else but me. For the time since then, I've gone back to writing for a Someone New. Like before, the faces change, but I stay the same. Identities don't matter for these pipe dreams of mine. Everything is pain, but sometimes I'm distracted enough in the moment to not notice the sting. I still write to a someone, but it seems that a someone doesn't write to me.

THANK YOU SOMEONE NEW

Thank you someone new.
Thank you if you listen.
I put myself before you
Against my better judgment.

I string together words
To craft myself relief
From all my time alone;
I'm touched but never touching

The tremors in your belly,
The tremble on your hips.
I watch but never feel;
I soar and hope to fall

In love with all the virtues
I speak upon your eyes
The pupils are dilating.
I ramble, mumble, fade

Deep in the hazy distance
Across my blank expression.
"I love you" never works;
The words are long and slow.

Your eyes begin to shudder,
And taunt me with their blinds;
You'd recognize the face
If I were still the same.

Demosthenes the Modern
A Poet to myself
Be one with those before me
Ignored by those to come

But lately, things have changed.
I never would have guessed
That everything I've found
Is right here, right now,

And I might have a way
To leave it all behind:
Escape into the present
And hold you like I want to.

So make me into bread!
Put me down like a dog
And save me with a Luger
Or an arrow, or a blade

Just maybe take compassion
On this old lonely soul
With old wounds left injured
Whose spirit rages on

Into a pair of eyes
I hope belong to you
So I can write their verses
In silence like before.

When you were someone different,
And all I wrote was pointless,
I tried. For her, I tried.
For you, I know I've failed.

I see it in your eyes
Closed down against my tempest.
No part of me you want;
This poem goes one way.

Like everything I do,
These words I string together
Are old beyond their years
Unwanted, save to pity.

But I am not afraid
To lay down prosody,
To hold you in my heart
Like I still hold myself,

Until I'm toothless, and tongueless, and bare