the words... by w.c. pelon

you and i are but wood painted flesh, perfect hand-picked pets, tangled in the twisted silver strands of freedom...there is no justice, no truth, no forgiveness, no getting around it, and no turning back. there are only shadows of you and me and splinters of light where hope breaks in...i'd like to tell you we have it all figured out. but words are just words and every tale unlearned is a new world born in the spaces between...every so often i can hardly remember the sound of your voice, or the awkward rhythm in your walk. i'm losing you all over again...if we're lucky we become scrapbook reflections somehow greater than ourselves, but time is one-way glass, so we count memories like blessings, close our eyes, and watch them pass...they say history is forever repeating itself. maybe this time, if we hold perfectly still, it won't have to...that moment of terror and harmony and wonder all at once. the lukewarm shiver in your gut you can't ignore forever feels like falling...you pretend you're sorry and i pretend words can mend, but you're not, and they don't. and i never cared much for make believe, so we look away and talk about the weather, and pretend we're still strong...reared in fear and spoon-fed gentle lies we learned to fight in total silence, trembling without sin never keeper nor kept...someday we'll uncover everything you couldn't teach me. rend mire from christmas cards we never opened, tucked away in weathered boxes, long abandoned where virtue used to be...i have this recurring dream of screams like church bell, dancing over desert sand, stained red with the lives of lesser beasts...i was afraid of your words, your fists, your laughter. i'm 28 now and still scared as hell. you just gave it a name...i used to dream in color, but you came along and everything changed into black and white, and every shade of grey in between...when i think of heaven, i see an empire of mercy, cherubim with cotton candy wings, carpet bombing with compassion, our legions of sin...i tried to believe in fairy tale endings the way you believed in me. maybe you were right; maybe i'm wired this way...some days i forget to miss you for hours at a time, and i don't hate you for dying anymore. but i still wish you had said goodbye...i wasnt trying to make you proud. i only wanted to paint pictures with poetry...when i was just a boy, i found a secret place where i could crawl inside and pretend it gets easier...you said one day, things will be different. you told us someday we would understand. i'm beginnning to lose faith...it wouldn't change anything, but just the same, i wish we had been warned... sooner or later, innocence dies...is any of this real? am i being tested? what if it's not multiple choice?let them take you for your money, for your heart, even for the body part. let them have the lion's share of all and hide what's left in iridescent dreams and milk-white memories of who we are and what could be...