For Flint

I wrote this for my boyfriend in an attempt to thank him for dragging me out of depression, and giving me way more chances than I deserve.

I came again

alone

to the land of the dead,

like so many times before,

to wander the grey aisles,

to revel in the dark.

The merest sound,

the wind’s whisper, soft but insistent,

the knife-sharp crackle of frost-stiffened grass,

is dulled, absorbed by the night,

an unwelcome intruder dispatched.

The icy moonlight frosts the curves of stone,

islands of greywhite, bonewhite, adrift in the black sea of night,

counting the dead.

They lie beneath my feet,

not at peace, not at rest, but at nothing at all.

Good enough.

Always the same here, always the same.

The promise of the future.

I dream of its comforting embrace.

 

But

a far-off chirp drifts out of the dark,

carried to me on the currents of the night,

a call, a lure from beyond the fence;

the gleam of an eye flashes through the trees,

catching, transforming the dead moon,

returning the silvery glint of daylight reflected from a world away,

mocking the lie of the reign of night,

holding the promise of morning to come.

 

I run past the stones to the surrounding bars,

a solid barrier to echo my self-imposed prison;

grasping, unheeding the chill iron that drives spikes through my skin

I stare out from this place through the narrow gap,

clutching tight, head pressed close, cheeks aflame with twin strips of icy fire,

urging a vision, straining to see.

Beyond, the gentle churning of the river, unseen in the trees.

A splash, a rustle.

And

there you stand again, aglow in the light,

sleek contours vibrant, eyes sparkling,

your life reaches out to me across the dark.

Like so many times before I stare,

yearning, unable (unwilling?) to go,

Too long out of the habit of living.

With a final chirp, you call, you turn to go.

How many visits before you don’t return?

Will my hesitation at last decide for me?

Poised to dive back into the night, dismissing the dead with a flick of your tail,

you pause at the crest of the hill, the question in your pose:

Will you go alone tonight?

Clutching the bars with hands long numb

I hang on the edge of decision

Wanting to go

Wanting to stay

Afraid of both.

The comfort, the certainty, the safety (the nothing) of the dead.

The fear, the risk, the warmth (the life) of the living.

I turn my back, close my eyes.

So easy here.

 

 

But you are there.

 

 

I slide through the bars, not so narrow after all.

The flick of your tail

flashing and gone like a thought

leads the way.

 

Behind me is the sureness of death, but it is death.

Before me is the uncertainty of life, but it is life.

 

Embracing the fear, I fly up the path into the unknown,

to your warmth,

to your light,

to your love.

Author's Note

This is intensely personal for me, so I really can't be objective at all. Could be total crap for all I know, but it still gets to me 15 years later. Yes, we're still together. For trivia fans, the critter in the poem is an otter, sort of my sweetie's totem animal. Or maybe just his favorite, who knows?