132. Caro nome

Dearest name,

repeated fervently,
bringing me such
sudden joy, a
smile each time,
like a stolen, secret
prayer;

waiting by the forgotten
lanes for a single
glimpse

drawn by an unexplained
foolishness –

how do we forget
such a name,
and the hopes
that rested so
tenderly upon it?

There was no high
drama
where I was called to sacrifice
myself to a callous,
immobile
lover
but how strange it is
to feel
that I still love you,
though you so coldly
abandoned
me

I must forget,
erasing all the imagined
moments of exuberance,
retiring to a quiet, backward
silence,
reflecting

131. Bite-Size

A moment of indulgence;
for I have spilled my soda,
and you are searching for
napkins:

right pocket, left
pocket, jacket –
meanwhile, I have
tissues, tucked precisely
in my own
backpack

watching you struggle is
adorable, perplexing, as if
slight suffering
justifies
affection

What does it mean
to not expect,
and be surprised?
To not desire,
but to exist in
simple
moments?

In such a fleeting
moment
of unadulterated
complicity –
is this what
friends do,
kindness in discrete,
foldable portions,
unexpected bliss
never beyond
these
confined
means?
Must we demand
more?

130. Kindness

In your eyes,
I see only coldness;
in your smile
I feel only hardness

In my mind, I
see only joy, I
feel only warmth

Only after have I been
informed
plainly,
nonchalantly

that you had not cared,
I realize how foolish I was,
how naïve I had been again,
fooled to believe in
a world of
false illusions,
forced again to return to
a bleak and
unchanging reality.

Could I have believed
a mere mortal
could transport me out of
this misery, this
eternal, natural world?

All we have are empty trees,
empty skies,
empty oxygen
filled with our misguided
dreams, lofty
expectations –

Stripped down to molecules,
what are we searching for:
meaning from our
atomic structures?
How could beauty assuage
fears, solve
insecurities?

Is it really only
escapist tendencies,
wishing to pretend there is
something more, there is
meaning?

In vain, searching
the same cold irises for
truth

Beauty is not truth;
beauty forces us to
examine, to
struggle from, to accept
our condition,
our destiny:
our frailty
and our
mortality.