—and a fragment in the ether
in the spring of Our Hope, after
confessions were made,
before they took you away.
When your father smashed frames
and your mother was disgraced
and your brothers just laughed
and your faith then relapsed.
Once you stormed out to
calm me, in the fray for our honesty,
as we rode to reach so far
and cast our wishes in the stars.
You were convinced that God was an astronaut,
entranced by the destruction of small ideas
and even smaller ideals—
—like the condemnation of Children who were
too righteous to conceal.
As the mist covered playgrounds held
church bells that no long rang, we
echoed the eras of our brothers
and lovers whose happiness
and hope forced them to hang.
And then you wandered away alone,
your fury a barrier from the rest,
pushing you further into isolation
as your belief in humanity digressed.
They found you sometime later,
lost within the woods,
frozen beneath the snow and the sill.
Your soul was too quick to abandon a body
that that had suddenly gone still.
In your left hand lay a bottle devoid of all its pills;
In your right, a handwritten confession and a plea for
your will:
The lives that we’ve chosen
are broken, not woven
with intricate delicacy.
And we’ll be forever shunned
by the demoralized ones whose
judgments destroy us so callously.
Our union was a sin for which
we could never begin to
repent or replace, for we
loved each other soley, with
trust, so boldly, which
was a slap in His face.
After all, adultery, pedophilia,
divorce and abstain are truly the better acts
as long as everyone else approves and opposites
still attract.
Regret is merely the mind’s punishment
for our heart’s cowardice.
My heart is too weak to bear any more,
and I know only one way out of this.
Perhaps one day we’ll be allowed to
live and love like we should, without
the scorn and ignorance of the resentful.
Until then, we must wait for the strength of
our spirit and the passage of time to transform us
back into angels.