“I’m just staring at
The ceiling staring back at me,
Just waiting for daylight
To come crawling in on me.”

You were supposed to have come home, the other day,
from what I heard. I was … trepiditious. Yet, I see
with a new understanding of life, and human
thought processes. I should, I’m my own case study.
Ripping through my mind like a blood–crazed shark.

“Is everybody happy, now?”

Did you find what you were searching for, there,
in sanctuary? Did you bring any home
with you, enough to fit a picnic table into?
Because, everything ends, even as new
everythings begin; dying to be reborn, how trite…

“And when the roads are clear,
You head on out of here.
And, if you’re coming back,
I’ll see you in the morning.”

I hope you read my letters with understanding.
Saw how you’ve helped me realize prisons
come in many forms; physical, mental, spiritual.
But, the ones that do the most damage
are wardened by self, in the soul.

“I’ve been up all night,
I might sleep all day.
Get your dreams just right
Then let ‘em slip away.”

Do you think you’ve got it all together, now?
Here, where sanctuary seems illusional?
Did we delude ourselves? Enable each other?
Because, in an aching way, I sense
we won’t be sitting on my picnic table, anymore.

“Is everybody clear?”

We were supposed to be friends for life,
and, I guess we were, short life though it was.
Yet, I am glad for its happening, you
gave me much, I took what I needed,
lived your life, vicariously. Thank you, my friend.

“I understand that everyone goes disappearing
Into the greater gray that covers over every day,
And hovers in the distance….”

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 3/2/05