Obsession

Obsession

To try to articulate the landscape of my desire
Is to capture the pink clouds of sunset
In a damp and tangled fishing net.
I want things, so many things,
Things beyond my grasp, beyond my deserving
With an intensity that consumes
Nearly every waking thought.
It burns like fire and weighs on my shoulders
Like the whole of a mountain range
Has seen fit to destroy me beneath it.
I try to swallow my need
And it chokes me.  It smothers me.
And still I embrace it.
I welcome the pain.
My body instinctually fights
For my survival, where my mind
Is not smart enough to let go.
Is it masochism?
Do I just need the hurt?
The adrenaline of pain to feel alive?
Is it simple fantasy?
The need for the fantastic
In a mundane routine existence?
Does it matter why?
Even if I knew the root
Knew the cause
Would it inspire me to change?
Would it enable me to let go?
I’m not so sure.
You color my days
In brilliant glowing hues
And when I just let thoughts of you
Wash hazy over me
I feel light.
I feel warm.
I am bliss.
It is only in moments of focus
Dangerously sharp
Broken glass and crystal clear
The edges of reality cut me to pieces
And leave my daydreams
Mangled and shattered
Decaying in the shadows
Of the Here and Now.
I huddle in a cave of self-loathing
Unable and unwilling to grasp my reality
With any strength, with any conviction.
Slowly turning jagged pieces
In bloody fingers
Fitting them back together
Until I’ve precariously assembled
Those what-ifs and wishes
Into dreams once more.
But each time it is more fragile,
With more exposed edges,
Knife-like and angry.
I know soon the broken pieces will be
Broken and broken and broken
And no matter how much I want to
I cannot heal the remaining sand
Into the pane I started with
The window into the happiness
That once, maybe, could have been
If, and but, and then, and can’t.
And never.
Never.

But for now I still have
Puzzle pieces.
Smaller and smaller.
For now I can still foolishly dream.