I never cease to be fascinated with my own crazy brain (and I mean that in only the best way). I frequently stumble upon gems cast about my recent past which seemed no more significant than pebbles at the time. When I find them, I am dazzled for a while. Ooh! Me a poet!

Like this piece, found in a paper journal (I know, so last century, but I’m a product of my time). I wrote it early last summer. I thought might be a song, which would be exciting (and still might be), but I won the Story Slam last night at the Zocalo and now I’m all into the spoken word thing. So I tried reading it out loud, and liked it that way. Maybe I’ll enter it in the next story slam.

This was written in the breathy new beginnings of opening up to the love I’d believed to be over (the ending of which, faithful readers of this blog will recall, was recounted on these page in grim poetic detail). Time passes, and things have progressed pleasingly on that front. More than pleasingly. And yeah, we do still choose to live apart. We go home to different islands at the close of our visits. It’s good.

This is from safely enough in the past that I can dust it off now and claim it in the name of poetry. O mystery me! I’m a regular one-woman archeological dig.

I Forgive

It will never be the way it was before
I might always have one foot outside the door
I know you, and I know you’ll never know what you might choose
but now, it seems I’ve got much less to lose

I forgive myself for loving you much more than I loved me
I forgive myself for giving you all of my keys
I forgive myself for toxic wastes of time
I forgive myself for fighting with my own face and mind
I forgive myself, it just seems right to do
I forgive myself, and I forgive you

Here we are in the aftermath of pain
Here you are, you’re looking at me that way again
Something’s different, things have changed and we are not the same
Can it be our phoenix love will rise again

I forgive myself for making you into my earth and skies
I forgive myself, I was not blind, I just closed tight my eyes
I forgive myself for breathing you instead of clean air
I forgive myself for blaming you much more than your share
It was never you, it was only me
I forgive myself, do you forgive me

Here I am in the wilderness with you
Though we’re breathing the same air, each breath is new
We’re moving slow, we’re in the flow with nothing left to do
Then after, I’ll go home alone, and so will you

I forgive myself for asking you for promises you’d break
You could not have passed those tests I made you take
I forgive myself for trusting you to be someone more like me
I forgive myself for choices to be less and less free
I forgive myself, it’s not so hard to do
I forgive myself, I forgive you

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 11:57 pm and is filed under about me, my creative journey, poems and lyrics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.