You always prized yourself 
on being fair and how many times
I said you were because in your heart
you are. But in review it isn't true .
You played people like chess pieces—
you up there in your chair pretending to be
the Great Mover, seeing the rest of us
through eyes ever fixed on
imaginary prize, some reward bestowed
for grand achievement, generous magnanimity
that was mere distraction from deep bereavement
and all the lost things hemorraging
from one heart and mind. 

Maybe you never even knew
what it was you would do, dismantling
the psyches of those who fell in line for you,
not to mention all the players who showed up
in your life as friend or foe, lover or wife,
parent, child, free and wild or meek and mild,
and I the one you cast as deviant defiant.
Our lessons each identical: to rise above
being compliant to you... you so close to God 
yet led astray, forgetting now what it meant
to walk in the Way.
Or worse—remembering it by heart
and severing it at the start,

Sacrificing Truth for your little lie
that opened the door to so much more.
I know you see it still as some race well run
and it is true so much good has been done.
But at what cost? And what was lost
in your insistence on authority
(not to mention authorship for you
or whomever you chose to give it to).
Do you not hear the drip, drip, drip
coming from your well-traveled but ever sinking ship?
You, great conquerer through time, 
supposed discoverer of freedom's land
and in another time arbiter of truth. 

Do what once you did and leave that boat.
Tear down that iron wall, ancient moat
you built sturdy around your heart,
cementing yourself in until
death do us part again and again,
all in pretended dedication 
to a calling, to a cause
and separation of that
from Love. 
But he is not a cause, 
and least of all the cause for a choice
for suffering. He is the life, the way,
the truth, and it is truth that sets you free.

For freedom we were set free.
This you whispered there and then.
This I believed in Italy.... believe it still. 
So today as you are climbing up that hill,
stop to rest and listen, listen, listen in
for the heartbeat of remembrance.
Eat your bread. Drink your wine.
Recall a fairer time when I was by your side,
friend or foe, lover, bride. See me now as
something more than some feather
in your cap, a means to an end,
the rotten apple discarded,
forgotten friend. 

Find me in your very core.
Hear me whispering, 
"There is more."