One More For the Record
(A sestina, written for UVA poetry class, spring 2001)
The rain-wet sidewalks hiss and fume when you leave
Because they ponder your non-return
Down the road you drive back home
Just so you’re weeks and worlds away from here
Where I remain nowhere in particular, but by myself
Taking the bronzing evening squarely on the chin.
One small tear starts its path down my chin
Trying to make a case for you not to leave
Me here by myself
Only begging for your return
About a million times a day, where here
The thing that’s always on my mind is you and home.
Unfamiliar feelings have several times born a home
Deep in my chest, knocking me on the chin
Every now and then just to remind me that I am here
And on Sundays it’s always you or me who has to leave
While there’s almost a guaranteed return
My thoughts are left only to myself.
How often I hide my fears deep within myself
Where my gut has become their very own unhealthy home
Hoping one day to be able to return
To where they really belong, which is somewhere closer to my chin
And possibly leave
Out of my mouth and find you here.
Whatever this here
Has become I’m not really sure myself
But it always manages to leave
Something missing since I met you, even though I’m at home
Sitting here with hand under chin
Thoughts once again to you make their quiet return.
I start to lose the meaning of return
Because it makes a circle always ending here
Which somehow manages to by my chin
Or somewhere deeper within myself
Searching for the bright light and home
Continuously behind the pain of leave.
Now I’ve managed to lose something here, thoughts escaping not through my chin
But rather through my self, the very home of my insides
Who try to return, and only always leave.
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