I try

I try

When I’m dry.

I guess we all do

In a bittersweet way

There is nothing between me

And the person in the next room

But a wall

It is a division we all tolerate.

I drink to forget,

To remember.

The psychologist in me would say

That writing was an exercise

In remembering,

Forgetting,

Coming to terms with

The complexity of grief

The distraction of life.

The song in my heart

Barely heard

Can burst out a little, all by itself.

From time to time

It will seek release, redress

Catching me off guard

I shut it down

Strangled, mangled,

There must be a need for it

As it remains in the background.

The alcohol is a brute

For blurring the edges

Just when a little clarity is required

Words on the paper can lie

But they speak a truth to somebody

Perhaps they are a camouflage

A dampener for the song in my heart.

In the dark

In an empty bed

It is a suffocating

Silence in a vacuum

But it keeps returning

Begging to be heard.

Even more beautiful than the last time,

How much longer will it do that

When it is so misunderstood.

Sometimes, it is louder, more plaintive

More insistent than before

I know the words, I wrote them

Rewrote them a thousand times

I forget their meaning

Until they tumble together

And I am enslaved.

I drink to forget

To remember

Splitting the atom.

I write to make sense of the lies,

Life, Death.

Not that I am successful

But I never envy those who are,

The attainment of contentment

Its maintenance

Is alien to me.

Perhaps I don't deserve it

Not since love slipped away

She died. It didn’t. I didn’t.

I know this.

The guilt I feel is in surviving.

Too many people know it

None of them are guilty.

Although the reckless disregard

I have for my own happiness

Seems to suggest

I exclude myself from that statement

But that is not true

At best, I am ambivalent.

It would be healthy to be unequivocal,

A bridge too far

You might say

But a bridge,

Nevertheless.