number fifteen comes just in time for
rhyme to bring back the reason
why I started this in the first place
twenty years of words lifted out of the pain
of persistent dysfunction under the weight of isolation
that was seemingly the only option
to cope with what life had become
it is not just the past but the future that keeps
my sabbath rest out of reach so I sleepwalk out of
dreams that I mistakenly embraced as an
alternative to the reality that was calling
me in a voice I never heard until
it was too late to return and respond
in the new place of possibility with
hope of stability that grows out of intimacy
that has been forever unrealized and feared
because of the inevitability of repeated rejections
that my heart’s protection was called to resist
I learn the cost of losing a better future for her
is a price that I will never afford
()
