FOOL THAT I AM

"...this is a show tune, but the show hasn't been written yet..."

--"Mississippi Goddamn" by Nina Simone

This is that defining moment which I have completely accepted that it is over. This should have been a love story, but even that is pending some sort of investigation or interrogation underneath bright lights.

in this union we have adamantly
worked to make one another
scream for dear life;
new lives without one another

becasue life together
with all its perks
is what we've hid
behind/had in mind

i could say i'm happy in love,
for that is the truth

yet, i am one and none
particular and insignificantly
numb

I could probably mail him letters, but I won't--he'll never read them. I have spelled it out in languages even unknown to me, and he lived only in his reality. So that is where I found a space for too many years now. No regrets, just questions about the questions. I'm no longer concerned about the why-not's and the repetitive notion of finding strange hands in his sweaters. Look at me! I have almost set you free in the purple rain, but this damn window is painted shut and no amount of tears are going to loosen it.

He built walls and I, whether concurrently, before or after him--I built them, too. It was an experiment, you see. I was assured that these situations were all smoke and mirrors; that my satisfaction was guaranteed/insured/nothing to fear. But pockets have always spoke to me, and I never wanted what was in anyone else's. Least of all, his. What could I do when he looked at me the way he did. He wouldn't hurt a fly, I thought. Did he just say he loved me, still?

But I have that...that fear because the truth is a mother-fo'-yo'-ass, and not ironic at all. It is not ironic that little black boys couldn't have these talks before the cycle of silence impacted our teens; who'd have thought it would last close to twenty odd years for both of us. And we both tried to love one another. I know that, but it means only so much when you think about it: what you did.

we suppose
where to go leads back to
the beginning

where once, two people lived
together in something
like a metaphor.

some defining part of speech
where silence gave or took
the last syllable of his name

I tried to hold it close to me, claimed it as my saving grace. "It" being the specific act of being commitedly together, taking on burdens still lingering; spirits loitering. He said he loved me and meant it, but the un-doing that let him know he could love & be loved was much more beneath the surface. Hands will never know you, and minds will stutter mid-thought at you. Everything I thought I knew, was sure of, went out the door when you came back around. But you referenced nonexistent beings and prefaced everything with the history of you, not knowing I wasn't some hard-to-reach island. If I am already here, how can you discover me?

not alone, i insisted on believing the
irony of sunshine in winter
breakfast cereal at night

love, nonetheless, i confess
that i, too, am strange & unusual

we suppose
does not become something else
eventually

It is snowing like mad here, and watching it all just fall and accumulate is making me feel a certain way. However, I'm going to watch the stillness of my neighborhood from my window on the third floor and imagine that all the cars leaving trails of tire treads and turned corners have safely made it to apartments and homes near and far. As Bronzeville is blanketed, I accept that I can no more change this fact--that it is over--than I can change the weather.

All I can do is let it cover the place; let it shower the sidewalks and walkways in front of all the rehabbed properties from Lake Michigan to the Dan Ryan Expressway. Maybe this time, our footprints will disappear beneath the mounting matter, finally severing any way back to one another.

liar, leaver
dancer, believer

This should have been a love story...really...