From icy depths of your magician heart
you have pulled the spring rabbit, illusion
of hope others are sure to applaud.
Oh, the magnanimity.

The very best you wish me. In every way.
Easy words to pen, harder to live responsibly.
But life’s a performance to you, all perception.
Why stop now? Let the show go on.

Let your proclamation of pretense – or is it
peace and goodwill? – let it hang
on the suffocating air between us until
it disappears as quickly as it came

like all well wishes that have dispersed
on the four winds of distance, apathy, promise
and pride. Words dissolve, disintegrate, disappear
as have all traces of last one I will call friend.

Where are the winds of faith, hope, love
and grace that are not so empty, whose whistling
is more than hollow harbinger of endless desolation?
Where are the disappearing fools behind

magic words spoken from afar? Wish it all
you want, the very best. Believe in mirage of goodness
you’ve placed between your haven from lepers like me
and this windless desert where I wander alone.

And one day, when you’ve no burning need
to make me untouchable, put down your magic wand
and venture here to see for yourself who it is you wish
it for. Please, do your best – your very best.