For thirty years they all told me
to find some way to tell the story

as if I ought to play the game you
have played. But I refused 

for to do so would only have
been a reduction, a forfeiture,

would have sacrificed thing that
mattered most to me—even more

than my life. And I do not regret
what it cost me and the weight of

all the sorrow I have carried 
for the innocents who suffered

for a time because I would not stoop
to such a lesser way and forfeit only

story that matters and is true —the story
of life and the love that holds us all together.

I know you will feel the impact
of your choices and all the stories

left untold, not to mention the million
little lies that have sustained your empire

that was always mere illusion.
Whatever your confusion

my story remains steadfast
and you will know it in its breadth

and depth, inside and out 
in this life or the next

and it shall wash over you 
perhaps all at once, like my

waterfall rain or maybe in trickles
and in time it will heal you

and reveal you and nothing
will ever be the same.

Thus begins the way I tell the story
with a faith that remains intact

in spite of all that has been taken,
beginning with my friend.