Addicts

Addicts   

Seeing the pond without ripples

It was not the stone you found to throw

Or the logs I will never shed beneath

Their weight or algae growth smearing  

The bark, but not your hands

The maelstrom, the avalanche, the catapult

Submerge the rock absent suds

Or explanations for alligators 

None of the motions bear the permanence

Of the mid-morning afternoons of recounting

Phantom days, as if you tried to avert or assist

This depression that pulsates inside my wake  

I know I am misshapen, cloven foot and tar lung

Battling a will to remain alone, shed companionship

For the joys of estrangement; I am addicted to my alone

Sweet and sensuous, the rafters of solitude scale their arias

So magnificent  

Despite my drugs, I fought for us to persevere, to bond the burden

Of my urges with a slipstream of empathy for the limits I bring to pace

The slashed tires, the lockout, the sabotage and slander; I forgive

The idea that you fought for me, that you sought my therapy 

That there ever was a pause to see my well-being, as your well-being

I abhor the core of your bewitched humanity gasping for the crux

Of what makes love palpable by the masses of us sinners

Be still, be vibrant in the zeal of your phantasmal convictions  

So Republican affixed on an imaginary candidate

Preferable to invent the life we lived, rather than admit

My addictions were no match for your own.