My Invisible Friend

My invisible friend,
I longed for you so long,
For so many years in a barren world,
Winding with the tune of your strange song
Against my common sense
Until the notes melded across
Bridging the chasm of opposites
To leave me muddled, at a loss
Of what notes did, did not, belong.

It led me off a cliff (it seemed);
I went again over, over.
Now after many trials
I find my instinct is a blur.

At this fork I’ve come to to decide
My learned mind insists you but deter
Me from my life.
Now do I stay with you, my nothing,
Living only inside me?
I find no outward proof of presence,
But I do internally.

You are oriented backwards
To the world my feet are in
And if I let you be my guide here
Am I doomed never to win?

Shouldn’t you feel shame towards me
For such a coarse concern?
It was you who taught me finery
As I awaited your return.

(When you were gone
In that vast empty space
I learned what I could never learn
Before in that same emptiness.)

If I give you up, my nothing,
Deeply I know it’s for good.
I have been with you my whole short life
Whose flow our bond withstood.
But it was you who cut our bond with blade
And I whose heart was bled,
And if you call out to me now,
You’ll find it’s I who left.

Bring your judgment on me, friend,
For what I do decide.
Cut me off for dropping God
And parting with his stride.

I don’t need my God now;
I have left you o’er the wall
And if you sing out to me
I will hear no note at all.

So, my friend, again it ends,
The hundredth time, now by my hand,
Your mountain out of mind, forgotten
Images we shared.

And if I am a godless peasant
Do forgive my risked miscalculation,
For our time was dear,
And it is not that I would like to lose your voice,
But I can’t hear
A different sound between your call
And what has none of it at all.

Perhaps I walked away a second
Right before you came back down
And opened up your gate to let me in.
But I have given every vision
Up of what I thought I’d chase
To live with what I get,
And you out in the distance,
On your mountain, ’cross your wall,
Sending notes out of your call,
Inside this valley, I forget.


My invisible friend now I see
The source of my pain has been my longing for thee
For me.

If I’d let your burn me away fully
I would feel no pull,
You’d be in my world
We would be in accord as we were deeply.

If I didn’t see you only through my shadow
We would not be separate.

My friend, do let me let you go
And let us live now side by side,
Back to back
With our closed eyes
Playing our respective plays
That never cross
Go on without my eyes upon your back
Along the path I also take.


12-18-11