Versifier

- The Seasons Of Grief: Chapter V - Poem II -

I drove too fast through the Dallas lights,

April was a blur of days and sleepless nights

My world was rushed; it was a constant show,

Just ebb and flow

Alone in my room, my mind would shift,

Potential love came, a fleeting gift

It bled and burned; it slipped away,

But not the love I found that day

I never thought you’d cross my path,

I was hanging on a hinge, so I had to ask

“How would you rank all eleven?”

Then we set a date on the day after the seventh

Our hearts were raw, our slates were clean,

Just you and me, in your bedroom unseen

An earth and water sign beneath the summer skies,

They were reflected in your ocean eyes

You were never a saint—but neither was I,

I wanted love, but you said you needed more time

So I bit my tongue and wrote my lullabies,

I needed a friend, a shoulder to cry

But then one day, after you toured my place,

You said you liked me to my face

And so we lived through the storms, fragments that scorned,

From love reborn to love forlorn

A mosaic heart, a battered chart,

It led me right to your part 

This isn’t grace, it’s something more,

A need I’ve never felt before

This is the curse, a sweet desire,

You turned me into a versifier

Love’s a game, or so they say,

Now I relate the songs about longing days

I played with the truth and an honest pen,

I found my way back home again

Here I write, still touched, still true,

Each stanza’s been glistening with shades of you

A golden age—I tried to save,

In every poem, every day

I never thought you’d be the start,

Of the ink that bled straight from my heart

But now I know what it all cost,

Between the verses, the pain and loss

I never saw you coming,

And I’ll never be the same 

Left all my past deaths at the pyre, 

You turned me into the versifier