I am the place in which something has occurred.
First love was fertilized in me under the warm moonlit air of summer.
For two weeks it was fed until that love
became the stage on which my heart would break;
for the first time.
Bold, youthful exuberance built architectural wonders,
in the form of dreams, in my mind only to have
repetitive waves of realism wash them away like sandcastles on the shore.
I have been a safe harbor for strangers on nights
when loneliness was a little too rough.
I am sorry I have to give this speech.
I am sorry I am not the kind of man you hope to vote for.
I made mistakes when I was younger;
to those who my mistakes harmed,
if my apology wasn’t enough
or if it never came, I’m sorry.
I apologize for those people who will make your troubles theirs,
not out of empathy, but because party lines
have placed you in the crossfire.
I am sorry that in my pursuit of an office
Persephone, she haunts me.
Hades, he fascinates me.
And I, well, I don’t understand me.
She who is everything I am not.
He who is everything I want
And I, who am lost.
I fear her because she knows I don’t.
He knows the opposite holds true for him.
I, well, color me confused.
She is the image in the mirror.
I am a creature created by narrative.
Every time I emerge from the pages of a book,
I trade a small piece of my soul for a piece of theirs.
I emerge rejuvenated by heartbreak,
Heroism,
And happily ever after.
A fundamental renaissance. A metamorphic reincarnation
Formed in the fires of fiction
Under the pressure of imaginings, that to many
Are nothing but falsehoods.
As light as a handful of feathers
The pack is strapped to his back.
The heat of the summer sun
Reflects off the world around him.
So sure it will work he steps off,
Weeks of planning and a million
Dollars in research say he can,
The ledge of the forty story building.
Falling fast, as he passes floor twenty-eight
The It Dies Today ringtone
Sounds from his pocket.
Maybe he should have waited to hear
The results of the engineer’s final inspection.
642 Poems and More 