Cause & Effect Syndrome

You were awakening.

You were opening.

In the morning I saw you and you were shining.

Through the beads of sweat caressing every blade,

you progressed every test that was placed squarely in the way.

I was caught trembling,

left empty, thinking:

God damn, is this life?

And the kiss of every razor’s edge grew a rose,

painted over,

said you already settled the score against yourself.

Truth is I can’t dictate the heart or mind to concede to changing tides—

unprepared and unable to satisfy this demand:

To be happily pushed and set all aside so that smile can glow.

This is different.

This is insanity.

Torn between joy within those eyes and selfishness—

to be kept in the pocket atop of your chest

so every breath in, I’m burrowing in.

Don’t forget me.

I’m forgetting myself.

---

The smell is the same—

clothes haven’t changed since the day we first met.

But you laid down a map, traced diagonals in red,

marked an ‘X’ with a swear you’d find yourself there

buried in rebirth.

A retribution,

a return,

to times that once were always settled and at peace.

The mold beckons out for only so many limbs,

so you’re cutting out the useless parts—

and you threw me in.

Am I blessed to attest to the soaring of your spirit?

Or reserved and defeated to be stones at your behest?—

Trampled over to realize this is the best way to see you fully become.

---

Every force has reaction—

The suitcase leaves me crying.

I see in a mirror years spent burdened with fear

and it’s building a fortress on my cheeks.

You embrace such a crippled, broken frame,

and I recoil in disgust of myself for falling every time.

Yet in case of this love, if science holds weight,

we’re as guilty as gravity.

---

Take this wordless confession, unspoken in all manners.

Let it go unheard—

in the end, our matter matters only to drip—

decompose—

replenish this hollow soil.

And in that perhaps I am content.

There’s no purpose to writing,

rambling on and on for a sign of approval.

My shoulders are broken.

They sag in the recess of every lurking failure,

so I won’t let this be another.

---

Here’s a page from the book you taught me on the oceans:

Underneath all the skin we’re begging “let us in.”

This is pointless—

so motions direct us all away,

protecting the self through isolation.

The Earth always moves and shoves at every corner.

So should we, as you said, discard all looming anchors.

Am I baggage?

Are you free now?

Tell me how do I figure this out

when my only clue is looking in doors you exited through and gauging every footstep.

---

I’ll assume for the worst that to win I have to lose.

At least then one of us works a way out of hell.

So don’t look back.

Forget me.

I’m forgetting myself.

---

Don’t look back, forget this.

It’s better without.

( ❤ Mitch)