Oh My Heart

I have lived a life of love and at 72, I still consider myself to be a hero who walks the ghost through the seven heavens of my heart. Though, often I find myself playing dead to this thought, hiding in the shapes and shadows, lost in all the sheets and old pillows of my youth. Tonight. Tonight is no different, for oh my heart, it sings and it cries. Speaking truths in the lullabies of laughter and sorrow. Slowly. In the moment before sleep, my eyes flash here and there. And around my room I spy rabbit holes. The veracious spirits of porcupines, dancing like Fred Astaire across the ceilings and walls as the lights outside grow and fade through my curtains tonight. I waltz along to the rhythm. Fading and shining in all the happiness and despair. The winds of change. The stagnation that still grows there in the darkest places of my heart. Surrounding me are the memories. The skulduggery that I often wonder what it is for, the lies and deceit that lays beside me in this bed of dreams. I gallantly pretend I ride a stolen horse. Onward, I gallop. A strong knight in the strongest night of dream. In the chain mail that glows and gleams. Racing around. In the shapes I describe as forests. In the shadows I see as monsters. I ride and I ride. A prophet. A warrior, who never waits that long to know where I am going to run to next. Onward I ride. Defeating the enemies. The monsters. The beasts. So called heroes of this magic land. Seeking fortunes. Seeking my pride. Though I still need a friend. A squire. A companion. In the loneliness, my identity is abandoned, and so I search the land for another to call my own. Calling out for Van Gogh’s dog to be my friend again. The animals and kin of men’s kindness, I crash into medieval thoughts that strip my mind bear. Cause a crescendo to swirl me up. To well up my body. To twist my shape. To bend my reason as my soul stutters, fall down, on to the ground before this dream. A hero lost. Gone too far. Lost in dream. Imagining himself too much to see, the truth before all in me, the very assassin that would strike me down.

Somehow I have lost a friend here. Lost a lover, who has moved on. To be another love. Of someone else far, far away. No one can see how much suffering is on my face. The face that always smiles when strangers pass on by. I wonder if someone has it in for me. Amid these tree-like shapes that stretch across as shadows and light in my dreams tonight.

I move on. Move downstairs. Out of the room of this forest. Out of the chain mail that held me in imagination for far too long. Too far gone. In these moments, I force myself to tell her so, so that she might know what I am here for after-all. In this call of dream and night. The shadows wander. Drift and find so many colors that have been lost in the ages of my mind. In a way, I am an undertaker to all the lies that I defeat myself with. The honest Joe I allow myself to be, no longer means that much to me, as I stand, stand, stand here before the mirror of my time. As if I knew the truth. What is means to find meaning, in the shinning of reason and season. A clarify I so often wish I could see before my very eyes. In the dusty motes of twilight. Behold. A reflection. A deception. A benediction to a tomorrow in me where I will once again shine in the knowledge that you’ve changed your mind again. Stayed with me. Lived with me. Loved me in the kind of life only a dreamer can ever truly dream.

Through these rhythmic dreams. Through this magic world. I find. I find. It’s so hot in here. Engulfed in the thoughts I have of you. I swing from high to deep. The pressure’s on. It builds. Building a dream to the thoughts and scenes of a day when we were together. The world spins. It shines. I want it to last forever, as if forever was simply a moment in my mind. Around me I sense a change. A change of color. A kaleidoscope of fury. Of beauty. Of emptiness. As suddenly it is 10 below. I know that I sound crazy. That I am crazy. I am lazy. That I am in between the morning, the dream, of nights that have come before, the morning after you were gone. I run toward the water. The waterfalls splashing around blue pastures. A lake. Oceans new inside these memories spent in a golden youth. I ask you to be my prayer. To forgive me for my honest pleasures. The pleasures I long to see, when all good boys have come home again. To a mother who is gold and true.

I make for the city. To a promised land. Promising not to look behind, only to search for truth onward. Forward. To the blue pastures combining to form the watering hole that nourishes my mind. A place where I might cleanse these thoughts. I run around when I hear my destiny calling. From behind the corners, these blind alleys I keep leading myself through.

Boom. Boom. The sound of my heart racing. I am born in frustration as I read all my letters, the words I have written in an attempt to ring the bells, to wake me from my death. With the best intentions, I’ve only alerted the five-o to this lullaby I sing for you now. I dream up a tomorrow where we can skin dive at the center of what drives us together. Say something, say something to me. Lead me through this dream. The thrumming. The strumming. The building of fires. The stirring of lies. Of lives. Of love. Lost somewhere out in the night. I hear you calling to me. To the Arabic agony that pieces these walls. Of my dream tonight. The boom. Boom, boom of my heart. The sounds. The semaphores. In these moments I ask. I plead. For you to sing to me to sleep with all the songs have gone before, that only you and I do know. In this place where, only the two of us remain here alone.

Out in this space. I am alone. I play dead to the thought. Make myself seem smaller than I am. I am not so strong. Waltzing along, this Alaskan Pipeline. A wilderness of cold. Of silence. The wisdom of my throat does not speak to me. It has abandoned me. I do not hear a sound. I stare at myself here. At the reflection of the waters. The frozen rivers. The icy seas. I see myself distorted. Reborn. I am an English beefcake. A comic. A fool. A lover, who uses love as a weapon. Who shatters hope, in the only place where hope could survive. I am getting away with it. I spread my love, to the senoritas, the Marias, the Mariannes, that have long since gone. So long. So long. There is no upside to this. I only move down. Down. For it is my heart that I miss. I am withdrawn. I am burned. I strip myself down, to the shirt of my birth. I am not ready for the uprising that builds inside. I must keep pushing on, for there are so many ways for me to move on from here. To seek guidance in another day. To find another way. To make all that I have done, go away, so that I might see you once again.

To greet you. To meet you for the first time. Who are you? To discover you again. I would be on top of the world. Lifted up by the bubbles that foam and froth. In the beauty of delight. A summer’s song with no end in sight. I am pleased to meet you here. Please to find you anew. Lost in the dreams, in the days, where I turn the pages, on the days of our youth.

As the days pass. As the years float on by. Sometimes, I too, want to fill up with stories of monsters, of heroes, of men. Find simplicity in the stories of the ages. The stories of old. The stories that drift, grow strong, but never become bold enough to wash away all my troubles. To wash away all the years. To make me forget. To make me find you again. Searching endless. Onward. Hanging on to memories. Hanging on to you. No more. For now, I find, I just wanting to go on home. To sit down. Have some coffee and some toast. Sitting in the chair. By the table. Waiting for you to come home at last. To see your smile. To hear your laugh. And for you, to lose control, with me again. In the ghosts of our past. In the ghosts of our youth. Let me be your next lover. Let me be your song. Oh my heart yearns for you, as I move on through the years, continually searching for our truth.