I have opened every box, every bottle;
looked under furniture, laundry, dirty dishes,
but no where can I find oblivion.
Maybe it’s me, my own blindness
that I think I can see and hence the confusion.
Sometimes I want to extinguish
my own existence in this sphere;
watch the blaze of insecurities and
make ashes from my lifetimes in doubt.
Fists in the air, smoke in the air,
feel the burning in your belly:
the heart will rebel,
if you are rebellion.
There is no independence;
I can not exist without you
the same as war can not exist
if its friend, peace, is not near.
Tell me of your love; it is treasure;
and I will get drunk and brag
of your greatness and splendor,
but that does not change the world:
i am yours to beat and to worship,
yours to sing to and scream at,
yours to come to and go from.
I will brag, though I know
there is no one that owns love.
these moments are fragmented;
oblivion is a tremendous effort
where focus is easily lost
and your mind wanders into the desert,
sometimes for 40 years
while you ask god, Please God!,
over and over which way
to the fields where love grew.
I’ve written four letters to her,
all of them failures of expression:
stumbling over small pebbles
and floating over boulders,
still I can not say what
causes the sweet ache in my heart.