I have often thought of the lie you told me
and the one you told yourself
and all the ways 
it stole something
much more vast than that
you thought it was I wanted
or was somehow asking for.

And even when I came to forgive you for it
and myself for believing things
that once I knew
were not true ,
there was the long wake of empty
the quake of your upward trajectory
and we in the rubble.

Trouble is, one who has been shut up
or shut out or sealed in a tomb,
her gift denied, her love
turned into lie
and multiplied
has little recourse and so of course
must die or come to life in time
by leaving things behind.

But you have always been alive in me
and I have carried that truth,
the dream alive, inside.
When all else withered
I clung to True Vine
and when I myself collapsed
or my faith in life lapsed
I knew Love would hold you.

I have often thought of the lie I told myself
and the one you believed
and all the ways 
it stole something
much more vast than that
I thought it was you wanted
or were asking for.

I did not know.
I do not know.
And I was bereft because of it.

It has been so long since I said thank you
and I know your soul knows my soul.

It has been so long since you said I love you
and my soul knows your soul.

It has been so long since I said I am sorry
though for what I do not know.

And then there is the thing unsaid
and all things buried, long-since dead
in this life for giving,
with its perplexities of receiving
and complexities of jumping through hoops
and going round loops to find some way
to give what I had to give.

It is enough, he said.
And so I laid down to rest,
not sure whether I would fulfill
God's will or rise to your very best
whatever that meant,
my life drained, spent.
I tire of this focus on a lie
and the truth is clear here
this foggy morning on the mountain.

That you held me in a dream
That I held you as you held me in a dream
and told you everything.

That life is but a dream.
That I must row my boat.

That love will be the fuel.
That I will fix my thoughts on finer things
as once we spoke of before you put pen to paper
and wrote your letter of love
and gave all you had to give
in a land far, far away
from me.

Poems, prayers, promises—
What will become of them?
What will become of me?
Much ado about nothing, I know.
I see how you see me
and all the ways you don't
and didn't see then my love,
my life, and what I had to give.