how does it feel?
everything oh so heavy
a nightmare become: trivial,
horrible, daily: life. Yours.
You tell yourself your life
is fine – otherwise.
These are just weeks,
they will pass,
grains of sand on the
near endless beach of
time you were allotted.
But in the small hours
of dusk and dawn,
the ache is near,
it’s here, in bed with you,
close to your heart,
is your heart.
To know that he whom
you love,
he who could stand close
to you, whose touch would
so alleviate your sorrow...
... is busy elsewhere,
can’t be with you, or only
marginally so.
And you are so fair a
soul, so clear-sighted –
not for you the
option of blind anger,
of teary accusations:
“Where were you
when I needed you?!!”
This is not your voice.
(As it might have been mine.)
You know far too well
what he’s busy with, why
he can’t be there in
person, and only a
little in mind.
That is the strength that I admire.
Not only that you would
honor your duty to your father,
and still keep up your
academic efforts.
You have the strength to
keep in mind, even in
such strenuous times,
how much wanting someone
whom you love to be free,
to be fully himself,
the best he or she can be,
can cost. Especially at times like these.
I watch you, having heard you
proclaim that knowledge,
being in need –
and unflinchingly,
paying up.
I only wish your eyes weren’t so puffed.
