watch me repeat me

i will admit

to you only

that this is not the life

i wanted to live

that i toiled in poetry

i could never learn to write

that there was a story that would

require no more to be read

i did not voice

that often i was too loud

too quick to judgment

including myself and now

where i am quiet and trying to remember

a day dressed by gentle violence

emptied by sunshine

scraped by the light

where you and i are sitting

like happy nomads

filled from an animal

who knew what it meant to be

opened to the possibility of becoming

more than this moment

and what one body can give

that i was supposed to be there

to see you fade

but wasn’t

that i could’ve given you a chance to enclose me

but didn’t

that i worked hard long hours totally

to be replaced by someone younger

and smarter and who will not make the same mistakes

as i

now old

and telling you how to live

though i forget too much

which i am sure i used to know

was a mistake too