Me...In so many words

I am ...
A man
With a heavy heart, bathed in obscurity
Somewhere in an empty room ...
With eyes not quite of autumn's gold, and yet
Neither all of winters grey;

I wonder ...
If love is a fable made for children
A enchantment of sweet dreams in their innocence
A honey-coating to help their throats
Choke down the bitter drought ...

I hear ...
A voice that whispers warnings, half-spoken,
Bodiless as hope, until I swear I cannot draw
Another breath unless this ghastly figure be unmasked,
The lies mangled beneath my righteous tread;

I see ...
A man, proud, God fearing, uncompromising,
As sheer as air - less, even, than the tears
That fall in desolation about his weary feet,
Salt poison pooled upon the withered ground ...

I want ...
A measure of quietude, a certain silence,
The echo of loneliness which heals me of dreaming,
The nothing that stills the wanting,
The numb, the cold that chuckles at pain;
I am
A man,
hidden ...

I pretend ...
That I can live forever,
That Time
Has no power but that which I afford Him
And so, I can wait, I can be happy tomorrow,
Sleep is for the dead; but its ghosts haunt my waking ...

I feel ...
Too much, yet too deeply to be without direction,
Too real for imagining, and yet the familiar eyes
Hold nothing of recognition, only my reflection
A meeting of shadows in sunlit glass;

I touch ...
The downy wings of hope, in wonder,
In reverence, in need, in hunger;
Alas, it burns my fingers as a flame,
A sacrilege, self-defined ...

I worry ...
That I am alone; that in my longing
I have forsaken all, but what a reward,
What smile divine should light the path to freedom
And how can I but heed the siren's call?

I'm tired ...
For doing too much, without worrying about myself, for fear of bursting,
And then, when by the pouring of my soul
I lie, a vessel emptied, I think deeply again
Of when people would worry about me
For what was had, and lost;
I am
A man,
empty ...

I understand
That life is what you make it,
That sometimes, the facade of many colors
That marks your triumphs brightly, blends only
To the loneliest of grey ...

I say
That we are made by life, shaped,
Broken, perhaps unmade and voided
But always, the core of us remains, waiting
With only faith, with trust, to be reborn;

I dream
Of bluest waters, reaching
With unnatural hands toward the faded sky,
Of dolphins that wander in seas without limits,
Carrying me water-breathing past corals and clouds ...

I try ...
To lead by example, knowing
That merely the telling holds no power;
A gift of giving has the power of a day, while
A gift of knowledge has the lifespan of forever;

I hope ...
That my darkness embraces you gently,
That pain is halved by sharing, that feeling
Wields nothing past the words it summons,
Except that it touch you with only healing ...
I am...what I can only be...ME