If Only

Reliving words, moments, images,

my heart quick-stepping through emotional scrimmages.

Reflection.

Efforts to keep it real are sabotaged as romance-birthed clouds of amnesia

hide the jagged edge of reality.

Comfortably locked in warm embrace,

scowling at the abysmal chasm with great distaste.

Battling to keep the mnemonic slides in focus,

wishing for Love to be the locus

Lingering scent, feelings dared, if only you could really have cared.

The heat of truth melts the iceberg of circumstance.

A dark ocean remains.

Vast, deep, cold.

Knocked down by the tidal wave of truth, thrown against the wall of fact, pieces of h O p E scatter wide, will it ever again be intact?

Excitement dwindles, text briefly rekindles.

Heavy blanket of disappointment unfolds,

my once happy heart a mite of courage upholds.

Refusing to cry, letting out only a sigh, who but on Him can I rely?

  

Here I Am

 Here I am, it's all I've got,

     empty hands, a forlorn thought.

Sheets laid out, I play my part, 

although the melody does taste tart,

      harmonic echoes stir the heart.

Just a frame with damaged canvas,

     emotion smears over holes of dampness.

Blank, rough, eraser-torn surface

     etching measures of words and purpose.

 New terms and concepts scribed by sages,

     are chased right back onto their pages.

The memory runs, wanting not to be caught,

     it adamantly refuses to be taught.

Dull, the lead of the once sharp pencil,

     my mind traces life's varied stencil.

The concepts escape my wandering mind

     leaving the text so far behind.

Trembling hands, outstretched to use,

     the rope's been cut, and left a bruise.