What love, friend,
in that glazed eye
that sees not?

Too worried, too busy
A tight band of distraction
wrapped around the head
A dark cloth encasing
your childhood dreams
your heart’s truest desires
covered in dust
Sadness or madness:
ache
indifference
or even cruelty
What a world
people say
A world of people
looking for themselves
looking for each other.

I know these traps
I know these deadweights
leaden myths and mental barbed wire
We are the same

But sometimes
Angst slips off me
like a heavy woollen coat
In my lightness I see
and the moon rises
within my breast
and into my eye
and reaches out—to yours.
Sometimes you shine back at me
full lunar brilliance
We are drunk like monkeys
at the sacred sour tree
on a hot summer night
Drunk on our own freedom
that was here all along.

But oh, my friend!
I am not so strong yet
that I can withstand
your thorns
your storms
your chills and quills
your suspicion…

How could you doubt
my good heart?

The same way
I suppose
that I doubt yours.