Waypoint

I can't sleep.


I keep thinking about how as I've gone through life people just kind of disappear on me.  Figuratively and literally.

I'm cognizant of the fact that these things happen to everyone to some degree but it seems like its more frequent with me. I inevitably run across the kind of people who are at a crossroads and I'm just there to help them see their options.

As though I were just a way-point for others to figure out where they're going.


There's a kind of noble altruism to it all but the personal toll is always heavy as I watch their taillights fade into the distance.

Be it family, friend or lover it makes no difference.  Ultimately my function is to enable theirs for some time before they move on.   As they go I cannot follow for any number of reasons but mostly just because I don't fit anymore.

At some point it has to be about me and not just what I can give.  However selfish that may seem I know it's ultimately true.

But it always seems to end up the same no matter what I do.


Being me is like going through life with a countdown timer running for every relationship.  The shoe will eventually drop and I'll be on my own again waiting for the next weary traveler to show up.  I'll take whatever small measure of happiness I can gather before they too move on.


That's life I suppose.  People come, people go.

I try to do that too but my road goes in circles and I end up back where I started frustrated, alone and unfulfilled. 

Better to have loved and lost they say but for me love isn't something that ever comes easy.  For most its no more than a match.com profile where for me it's a divine symphony whose movements stir the soul.

I've heard the music but the piece is always unfinished. 

A symphony of one isn't a symphony at all.  It's a solo.

And there too, especially there, I stand at those same crossroads and grudgingly start the timer once again.













 

Heart be still

 

Heart be still

Trouble me no more

your nagging insistence

ever drags me to the fore

I've had enough

of this thing called love

I've had enough

of fools folly in search of

I've felt this before

so long it has been

once more into my life

to wreak havoc again

For years I was content

to deny love's caress

For years so fortunate

that for me none did fluoresce

A year ago we met

I felt the flame

But hesitant in my action

I feared the game

Then joy when I saw her

as again she came through the door

heart beaming, mind racing

a love rekindled once more

Finding my courage

I invited her out

she accepted, I dumbfounded

but fear was I without

I thought she felt the same

or so I thought

But always that nagging

was it all for naught?

For me the flame lit early

for her it was not so

she was not ready

For what my heart would bestow

Did I surmise

in the knowing of my pain

that pursuing this one

was a fools errand in vain?

For she was not ready

my feelings unrestrained

Loving eyes from me

would only cause both pain?

Pain for both

sadly it is so

love unrequited

A feeling hated 

yet so well I know

I go down this road no longer

my solitude I must reclaim

Not her fault not mine

simply victims of the game

She might have met me

if the past didn't hold her so

a pain in her so deeply felt

she could never forego

She told me of loves before

of dreams lost in the fray

How solitude she now sought

while she pushed me away

Maybe in the future she said

a chance the flame

but for now it was no

she would coldly abstain

But love in my eyes I could never hide

friendship would always strain

Expectation, desire

in me rising again

  The flame will burn, that won't change

but the pain of it will subside

My life now familiar yet strange

another love has died.

I thought we'd conquer worlds 

But from WE must I now refrain

Once more I seek to master them alone

and From love I will abstain.