Blueprint Blues

melancholy in your irony
your blueprint blues have killed
all insight into why or why not
he does this thing to you

don’t worry, it’s not over
your second chance will come
you’ll have options you can cradle
in your hands, your still soft hands

you could kill him, you could love him
you could kill him and why not?
you could ease him into sadness
equal to your aforementioned blues

you could do absolutely nothing
and force his arms around you
you could clear your throat and scream
like in 1995

but dear, your blues are honest
and his are made from sugar
throw the ring into the water
I know you live near water

watch the shiny speck float freely
while your blueprint blues turn black
loved by nothing, loved by no one
loved my memories and shadows

and if this eases nothing
and if this makes you cry
then cry like tears are trains
rolling west and south and west again

there is love and there is failure
there are eyes still left unseen
there are misinterpretations
there is this and this is nothing

you are wrong to wait for nothing
I am wrong to want to kill him
he is wrong to ask for everything
I was wrong to never tell you

but that forest is the pines
and the pines will live forever
as will fragrant lilac memories
I know you live near water

but the blueprint blues keep playing
in your swaying lies your secret
back and forth and back again
in melancholy, sway back again

part of peace is what it isn’t
part of that is what you keep inside
you can sleep beside him
you can dream away the silence

you can store away the pictures
of the poses and perfect places
the past stays in parentheses
open arms and closed regrets

piles of bones and eerie fragments
moving vans and dust and dirt
hanging wreaths and tiny tears
the brightest angel shines alone

what this is not is a longing
for that moment of rescinding
all that slowly came before you
what you were silently born into

what this is then is a prayer
that your blueprint blues are just a song
that you find your lone hill pine
that the wind is swaying with you

April 20, 1997

(if you knew me back in '97, could you remind me who/what I'm writing about here. I've forgotten)