Damage

Damage,
Light dims with your name.
I wonder, "When will labyrinthine life
Begin to look the same
As in those lavish, temperate, island days
Of lyric tropic restfulness,
Remembered, as a youthful halcyon breath,
Now shattered into jagged voids
Of sharp, suffocating helplessness?"

Timelessly, they slip away,
Those rays of rife intensity,
Into cat grey clouds encroaching
At the ending of my day.
These broken shores of amnesty
Are sinking in the waves
Blowing in on frequencies,
In recognizable synchronicity,
But hard to navigate.

Damage, you lay me down so low.
You try so hard to wrest from me
Some priceless thing you'll never know,
A precious, tested balance
Against the undertow.
But I am a hamon line on a blade so fine,
So sharp, it cuts so swift and deep,
Through everything you are, old friend,
And knowledge is my keep.

I know it isn't really true;
These nightmares that you put me through
Can never drag me down for long;
I've always been the stronger,
And you are possibly alarmed
That you couldn't hold me under longer.
But one tragic, lasting, lonely day,
Maybe you finally will.
You will take my pulsing, carmine heart away
But not my legacy.


J. Shidler, 2013-02-22 to 12-05