lying-sleeping-gods

What promises do you want from me I don't know if I can make the normal ones

It's heartwarming that You still don't seem to ever Get sick of my company

I agreed to babysit The first time you went exploring I don't know if any of that Was a good idea Or what it means for us In the long run

You went in And I was so proud It wasn't easy It isn't easy But you're turning up

I'm pretty sure by now That you forgot you told me That part Of your awful secret To judge by the way You speak of things now Should I remind you?

If my love for you Is taken from me I don't know There's a lot I don't know

You know all the best songs and Sometimes you'll even Tell me about them

I miss all our nighttime ramblings Through the moors and fens of Analytic philosophy, and our own haphazard theorizing I resent That I can't do that anymore But I'm glad I got to do it with you

It's nice that you two could have At least one thing in common Even if it had to be alcoholism

Trust Is a subtle little thing of a thing I guess we keep going with what we've got

You asked me that night “Did I blow up the world?” Nothing so existential I just needed to talk to you again To find our way back to the world Of me and you And we did And we talked about hard things Maybe we will talk about harder ones, yet But I can't see what's on the other side And I don't know how to risk it

The roots of melancholia Feel so deeply and subtly planted in you I'm not sure – could you be another way?

Did God put me Here for you or you here For me?

You don't talk much about Therapy these days and I don't know if that's a good sign Or the other kind

That someone you loved, and you Could do that, and that I can't And I'm sorry And I wish you knew

You feel yourself So different, so divergent And I don't want to downplay it Minimize it But I do want to say Over and over That it doesn't have to be some moat Some high daunting fence That keeps us away

Was that cruelty?

You screamed It shattered And I flinched, but barely Strange, how I know I am perfectly safe You rage not at me Do you rage even at them? Or is your wordless curse Reserved for the unspeakable three? You don't say In fact you go on talking almost normally As if nothing had happened And then you scream again And I don't know how to ease your pain And I don't know how to speak to it But at least I know how to sit

At times your cantankerousness Begins to have the air of bitterness Deep, molasses-thick It has worried me I can't blame you But I can worry

You forgave me? You forgave me

I'm glad you became friends I wasn't expecting that

They asked me To keep vigil They were worried about the obvious thing But as the night went on I worried About something slightly different You said that you're always in that place And I think you might have it half right But I can't explain the other half

Physical media is obsolete, you wrote But that tumultuous first time You brought me the internet's finest On well chosen dead trees And I was so grateful

All gamblers have The bad luck To be gamblers The bad luck To have good luck sometimes You have the good luck To perceive the beauty of it all But I don't know That could be bad luck in the end

I'll confess At times I found it hard to be your friend In the early years And you might well say the same But it feels easier and easier With every passing day Unbearably light Unfathomably so

It makes me happy when you ask me For advice on practical things

You came looking for me At least one of the times I vanished

I guess an addiction to your job is healthier I guess You do seem happier

Are you avoiding me? I really hope not

I'll never forget that time You hugged me It was so sincere And spontaneous And heart felt And unexpected

I hope I never hear you say the like of that again but I hope you'll always know that I can

At least we are maladjusted somewhat synchronously

But as for me Survivor of three journeys eastward Survivor of six round trips to an inside place Survivor of a few inept attempts to be in love (one disastrous) Survivor of the beginning of the end of the world And that's not even the worst of it Help me off the mat The blood, trickling

In that the realm of figures, of resourcefulness and lemmas Call me Benthamite But in this the realm of time spent Of visits that risk ending badly Call my tears partial still He so loved the world? The whole world? I find it, I find it, almost wholly in these Jesus wept Jesus wept, and I weep Lead us to new life

You came To walk the gully with me To see the tenacious plants climb To sit just short of the beach Eating fish and chips Whiling away the freedom It meant a lot If any meaning ever means anything or everything And still there is The smell of fountains The trepidatious joy of some new delight And a thimbleful of hope For redemption And for things even more glorious