I once wrote a smile down.
I once carved a line in the sand
upon a shore, after I had realized
that time is an infinite sprawl,
leaving wounds as open as oceans –
as that smile came to be known
as that divide between sadness,
softness, and some other choice.
That smile was from recognizing
that life repeats what it ignores,
that heartbeats will continue
as footsteps that skip
entire moments of darkness
for the place of eternity.
If I leave this ocean. If I take
to Heaven, with a similar
or a different faith, I will not awaken
with another’s eyes. I will always
repeat these words
as being grains of endurance.
If I ignore, then I regret,
while holding hope as a fishing net
around an unforgiven future
before I recede from the past.
If I erase that line,
I become focused on mirrors,
hoping that humanity has changed,
that nothing will come apart.
For what unity has not also been
the division? What isolation
has not also been the reveal?
Modern Romanticism 