Waiting
I'm lonely
Standing here at the same crossroads
Where you promised me redemption
Almost fifty years ago
Suitcase packed
Hopeful glance
Sunburned face
Windswept hair
My watch doesn't work any more
It always says it's noon and midnight
But I look at it anyway
And my heart clicks in my wrist
For a while yet
And I have to wonder
Do you stay away
So you can say
I never played
By your rules?
But what promises did you give me
Except that you'd arrive?
I look down both still roads today
And all I see are two dirt paths
Empty
Blowing dust
Tumble weed
Expansive blue
The definition of empty
Waiting for redemption
For new grass to grow
Where the roads
Move slow
Then stop
So stillness can catch up
Now the rotting clay of my stale belief
Molders under the weight of your inadequacy
In this place
You're always late;
I always wait.
But still…
Somewhere under all the words
The latent promises
There is something.
I know there is…
Somewhere.
There is something under what is taught
Something older than the words that are used to
Spread lies about You
There is the airless air
The lightless light
The soundless mirth
And more than anything else
I want to be there
I want us to be here
I want you to arrive
Finally
With excuses and promises I can believe
I want to drop my heavy soul
And float into you again
Merging far beyond mere words
Between the June strawberry
And her red coat
Between the nucleus and the electron
Within the vastness of space
And the empty sockets of a prehistoric skull
In the first breath of death
And the last strife of life
Between the water and the fish
Within the realization of love
Outside the boundaries of movement
Within the home of the ancients
Until the night reverses itself
And the eastern star blooms,
I want to be reabsorbed.
I miss you.
I feel forsaken by you.
I want to love you.
I wish I understood you.
Please
Please
Please
Let me
Someday.
--Eric Marley
December 2012
