Traveling North

Nobody knows
I’m waiting with a stranger
at the end of love,
holding his hand
just to remember
anything warm.

When the train
to tomorrow arrives
at this station
I will get on,
hand him a note
explaining everything
and the address
to my rented room
at the end of my journey.

It will be enough
to kiss him farewell.

I could die
holding on to the arm
of this belief system
where everyone obeys gravity
and the passing of another season
without noticing
that I have left my body.

At the end of the night
where Jasmine perfumes
my tongue into silence
I will remember the skin
of the stranger’s hand
pressed to my human palm
and know that kindness
is coming to find me
in the new place
where the unlikely landscape
of forgiveness breaks all laws
of my nature.

This pardon won’t last forever
so I’ll not wait
for the signs or stars
to direct me.

I am done arguing
with regret tonight
as I step clear
of the platform
to travel north.

Dropped

At midnight before the next storm
I am blind, my hands frantic
against the walls
of alone again.
There is no language
for the color of this emptiness
that has dropped
from my hands
like the glass shattering
on the cold tile floor
of morning.

The sound of glass
cutting the flesh
of the night walker
is a gasp of disbelief.
I ask myself on the inhale
of this pain
how I could not have known
I would uproot my own betrayal
in the beauty of my spoiled garden.

And yet, another year has passed
just as the clouds will drift
over the green fields of spring.
The shiver of recognition
of all that precipitation gathering
in the corners of my eyes
and falling hopelessly onto
the stone cairns
I planted in hope
is a chill I can’t warm.

My journey is so long
and my burden of love is too great
to be abandoned and left
for the greed of the thieves
who will never pay what is owed
for my trouble.