penitent

spare me now the trappings of your well-planned soliloquy
practiced perhaps in the hopes of plying what comes as attention
or perhaps even begrudging affection from this wasted lot

it is not that your presence is unwanted nor is it that you, yourself, are
not worthy of want. this is an inevitable reaction to time bidding defiance
disallowing my reprieve, holding back a claim to peace and forgiveness

a sorrier plight surely exists not far from here and one sorrier still just adjacent
i wait not for the harangue spoken in a voice stealing from my own lips,
the issuance of which might reveal stolidity enough to break you.

i wait for you to walk on of your own choosing.
soon it will be clear enough. you supplicate only to shadows.


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i wrote this as an offshoot of the emotions in a book i've been reading. only after a few of the lines had been written did i realize i was writing about myself.

funny thing about poetry is that it bites back.