Fortitude

This is another one of my older poems. I pulled it out today and revised it ever so slightly.


FORTITUDE

I used to think you were my Muse.
Once I was so sure it was you. Almost.
I was wrong.
Now I know that my muse is much closer
and lives inside my dreams, living my life the way it ought to be lived
or at least the way I thought it ought to be lived.

I had an epiphany,
a gleaming moment of self-discovery that made you
amusing in some sick way.
I wanted to ask you if you were happy now
because now you have what you always wanted,
but I’m not sure you realize.
Let the dead bury their dead.
I am drowning in religion and swimming in spirituality,
placing my priorities.
I can’t sign away my life. I’m asked to do the impossible.
I’m on my knees.
You are my Jesus.
You are my first priority.
But you’ve got to understand that my spirituality is
deeper than four days in the sea of humanity.
Though what they say is right,
that everything in this material world requires that we give something in return,
I don’t mind making that sacrifice for you.
But you’ve got to understand that this is it.
There’s no higher level.
Believe me, there’s not much more and you’re digging
for something that perhaps was never there.
Maybe that’s the mystery of me.

I think about the irony of how we’re all somehow destined
to become what others think we are.
I think about the disappointment when I realize I’m not
what people think I am.
My sandpaper hands don’t always live up to these mistaken expectations.

I lie awake one more night.
I think about school and work and my past and my future
and my present and my end and mostly you.
I hear an echo,
the sound of a capless pen clicking in an empty room
and I go through all the red lights.