You love too much, I am told by a man with a briar heart, thorny sinews and collapsed ventricles bearing down on him, hardly beating in his tight chest. He looks at me with flat, slate eyes, chipping and eroding. His hands are dark with cigarette burns and rough with calluses; I feel them on my shoulders as he looks down at me, face collapsing in at his eyes like a dead man's.
For the first time, I realize he is dead. His briar heart dried up when winter killed his rose; my father, he is all thorns.
He squeezes my shoulders, too tight. You look like your mother, you know, he whispers, eyes shifting to the garden, to the yellow rose I plante
An Exercise in Existing by mondays-emblem, literature
Literature
An Exercise in Existing
From a shore, you watch.
Eyes dripping, contributing to an ocean as wide as space
and as deep as time.
There must be another side, another edge of this vast bowl.
And there is.
Some days you think you can see it, a haze on the far horizon,
like heat on a sidewalk or the hood of a car. You tilt your head,
eyes slit, watching the wavering lines like dancing brush strokes.
Other days, hazy days, there’s nothing more than the clouds
seeping into the water. One long swoop of grey blue green.
And on those days, with salted air sweeping across your face,
hair tangling like serpents, you can breathe again. Lungs ticking
back to life like
"Hello there loneliness, how are you today?"
Your silence says it all.
"Would you like to stare at the walls with me?"
Of course you would, that's why you're here.
"Lovely weather don't you think?"
Oh, you don't want to go out.
"I think I will close the curtains then, if that’s okay?"
You enjoy the darkness.
"Have I received any calls today?"
There hasn’t been any for a week.
"Wow, aren’t you quiet today?"
The only sound is my voice.
"I had a funny dream last night you know?"
I wished it would never end.
"Oh, how come I can’t remember it?"
Your presence makes me forgetful.
"I think I will have a drink,
There's always something to be done
For which we may choose to walk or run,
But oh what bliss for a chance to stop
And let those heavy eyelids drop -
In comfort muted sounds to gather
To quieteness all around.
Let us stay a while and see the one
Who reflects the time then next door comes
And looks around his place to recline,
Recumbant, cosy, clears his mind, when
The onomatopoeia of raindrops landing
On bulbous leaves drum understanding,
Onwards leading toward comfort's dream
as birthright burden's sense recedes.
The nearby garden trees' perfume
Like Beauty to the Beast's bedroom,
Kisses 'Adieu' and breathes 'So long',
Wh