the language of home
Mar 16th, 2008 by Ree Joy
my heart counts with fingers
that don’t cooperate at the best of times,
my soul craves a different province,
and my mind is often lost
in abstractions
between.
so how, in the name of all that’s holy,
do you expect me to understand
the texture
of your silences?
i read the words you write,
the poignancies you mutilate
with every revisitation; those tastes
you remember imbibing but don’t seem to recapture,
well enough to leave alone,
or want to keep,
those nuances you surrender to oblivion
everytime you fall in love again,
or stomp, with bare feet, the embers
of past excruciations you decide to hate
for an imagined script’s sake,
everytime they pop up
on your browser.
or am i wrong, and those times you wreck
a bed in the company
of some mindless alliteration
just another indulgence in self-mockery?
ah, mercy, give me another tongue
to oppose the mendacity of these, my demons,
these clawing lies populating the void
within me, these longings which hold another
human heart in ransom, in blame, even if
only in my spirit;
so i can lead my heart
to a language — one that’s whole –
that holds no derision everytime it offers love
its own interpretations,
so my soul can find its way back,
long lost between the lines, from downfall,
so my mind can speak once more
the language of home.
nobody can help you with your ghosts
and I am so sorry that that entity somehow includes me for I will claim no such arrogance
still I implore you, with all that I do not know, and all that I do not understand, and all the private interpretations that warm my heart and make me smile
don’t let the river run dry