I am forever floundering,
upside down at sea,
yet ever on the inside as strong
as any tower could be.
Without one true friend
in the end as it was
in the beginning,
the door to everything open wide
but no one daring to come inside

Where there is a rare tranquility in the stillness
even if all around me things are murky
and there has never been a safe shore,
stability or consistency.
But I am that shore
and an ocean too.
I am home;
alone.

Is this the reason, seeing you here—
even having not seen you for decades now,
keeps me in the seemingly capsized life
even as each day I put hand to plow
going nowhere?

Is it because she drove me
with detached puncutuality each week
dressed up in my uniform with all the badges earned
to drop me off at the place where I told her
how they would take us one by one
in the room and the good general's guardian
would torture and maim, tease and tame?
Is it because she to this day looks the other way?
Is it because she reminds me of repeated tragedy
age to age the same?

Is it because he did not see,
because he trusted implicitly dogma and decress
and all things handed down in time, what and who
was in need of protection—me, the boy, his heart
and the treasure that seemed untouchable 
once upon a time? Is it because he was so
careful and convinced of having done 
the right thing that he lost sight of 
the only thing that mattered?
Is it because he reminds me of all things I love
that have been whittled down?

Is it because I could not keep things straight
and face the value of who I am in light of
all the duplicity and lies that multiply like flies
and are drawn to me and feed on innocence
and purity until there is nothing left to see
and no one left to be? Is it because I am so weary
of wandering and bearing witness to wanton
and willful endangerment? Is it a lesson
in loyalty that is eternal penalty?

Is this the reason seeing you here,
even having not seen you for decades now,
keeps me in the seemingly capsized life
even as each day I put hand to plow
going nowhere?

In the stillness, here inside, there is a rare tranquility
yet all around me things are murky
and there has never been a safe shore,
stability or consistency.
But I am that shore
and an ocean too.
I am home;
alone.

I am forever floundering,
upside down at sea,
yet ever on the inside as strong
as any tower could be.
Without one true friend
in the end as it was
in the beginning,
the door to everything open wide
but no one daring to come inside.