5 May 75 ... the conversation
Last night she talked to me and expressed more than I knew she held
vessel of my love...
Like night and day, I walk in and out of her influence
and I'm torn by the winds of our love and thoughts,
and she, for her love, bears as much.
Until we know, we won't be free of this waiting
and until we part or mend, we'll be torn of heart.
Deal my mind cries... wait, my heart screams...
hurry, my fears whisper... Rose my love says, ... Rose.
She said maybe we'd never be happy,
she said maybe the big hurt would be better
than this waiting and a future filled with more hurts.
And then she held me until not the winds of hell could touch me
and whispered to me to do the best I could.
She said if she could just know that I was coming back
she could cope with anything... and I tried.
I tried to make it work, to say it without cheating...
but, I couldn't.
There's no way to say for sure if you don't know
unless you cheat or lie... I wanted to put her on hold...
wait for me, I thought, don't get lost until I know...
but we both know who would lose more this way.
So strange... when I'm away I can't think of anything else
for the emptiness that fills me so threateningly
I move in dreams which wait to wake...
I drift in these dreams, unfelt... unseen, spaced
a traveler in a silent scream...
moving in poses... through washed out scenes.
She says I want my cake and to eat it too.
That, like some child, I imagine a paradise here
lying hidden from me here in my mundane life.
I want love without hassles and problems...
she doesn't... she doesn't want or imagine more.
Our love is more than enough to make life good
Is it that we're afraid that since we've only loved once
that it wouldn't happen again if we split?
And, are we avoiding the answer, either way,
with this touch and go love of ours?
Am I improving myself with all of this...
or just ruining a good marriage?
Do I know the answers and my pride blocks my sight
of do I know and it's just fear that stays my hand
or do I just not know?
Is the way of the intellect just too hard for me...
or is my common sense saving me?
Am I just a fool chasing whimsical ideas
or am I a coward,
afraid to live my best dreams out?
What am I...that I can feel her love like warm hands all over me
and her arms like all the mothers in the world
and think there's still more?
What am I...that I can see how our love holds me
because of my emotional need for love's security
and not walk away from this material bond?
Who am I...that I should have to answer...
and who am I that I cannot?
gallagher
5 may 75 North Long Beach
- late at night at Rose's apt.
— Copyright 1965-2008 by Dennis Gallagher —
