will

when uncertainty whispers longing,
when hauntings of the past
tremor at my breast,

you're the purging
i've sought on my knees,
you're the solitude
found in battle scars,
you're the will
that is surviving,

when uncertainty whispers longing,
when hauntings of the past
tremor at my breast,
i must ask of you -
let me be the longings
you'll never have to doubt

-rohe

letter to my mother

you thought you knew the world
from untainted eyes,
your world view never went beyond
the life you chose of black on white

but, i know why you chose your path,
i know of the simplicity it offered you
beyond this, this world view -

you criticized the vices people
carried in their pocket,
or the heavy damp cigarettes
flung from their lips -

you rationalized a drink,
as something that offered
addiction and doom
at the end of an empty
beer glass,

but,  you never seemed to
learn that desolation
is the prize for the bitter
caverns of an empty soul,

your addiction was in
finding the flaws of the people
around you;an insecurity
that is only the reflection of
what frightens you the most,
its the reminder of your dreams
that lay wasting on the verges
of the reality you created -

this slow licking flame isn't the
voice of god on your soul -
its your own soul, begging
to be rendered - to be loved
for  it is in the tumult that
the soul finds a voice, and in
simple compassion
passed between kind words
or the soft touch of love that
the soul finds gentle trepidation.

your reckoning is not in beside
an immortal deity,
your reckoning is the slow steady
grind to the grave,

when grace begets age and you
find your strength is gone -
your skin becomes a mere husk to the
callused and worn bones that lay heavily
on your heart.

though i hate your words,
i love your mouth - because it has
given me the kiss of  vision

i see you as a child, as an infant -
never given the taste of infinite love
- you chose this, and i forever
choose another way,


- rohe

to mend

they called it loss - the seeping swill
that was pressed against your wounds

the called it love - the brevity of dispair,
that was all your experience of home

- rohe