Lovesong to Carlee

for Carlee

A finger raised to point out a wizening point, poignantly. Now bent. Now let falling like the slushy snows of Brooklyn in February. Perhaps there's nothing more to say, that is, to point out. Crystallized and let fall.

A lovesong.

Just to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're in pain. I'm sorry that things haven't worked out as we dreamt they might and through fully human failings we let ourselves be small, sad. I say I'm sorry and you roll your eyes and declare, 'Well…that's nice, I hope you feel better now, less guilty,' and I say this isn't for me. This isn't about me. Perhaps it's my own callousness, my own little lusts that cut you so deep, but no, it's not to say I'm sorry to make me feel better but to tell you so clearly, so loud that I'm sorry you're in pain because I care about you. You mean more to me than you will ever realize, and to see you in pain is more than I can bear. To have seen some pain, some trouble in your heart and know that I could have been there, could have said something, but I didn't is too painful to consider so here I write you hoping with heartstrings crossed that some day you'll read this, someday know it's for you, and someday actually believe in the place where it's coming from.

Faith. To have faith in a word. A quiet logos linking only one to another but having the history of divinity folded neatly inside. To speak softly and simply what is real to one pair of eyes and one sick and throbbing heart in the simple, perhaps naïve hope that you will be heard and understood and most importantly felt on that deepset level.

I'm sorry you are hurting and know that I love you and am and will continue to be there for you if ever you should choose to accept me back into your heart, into your confidence, your respect, your faith.

Spring is coming. And I am going very far away. But to go away is not such a big thing after all, for after all we cannot go anywhere but to take our lives and our loves (that is to say, our homes) with us. I've never moved a full foot without carrying you with me and when I said if you loved me you'd follow me out there I didn't mean you'd actually have to take a single step only that if I loved you, you'd inevitably follow me out there…which you will, whether you want to or not for I do love you exactly as I am and exactly as you are.

You are my family and even if you feel in a moment that I am not your family, I repeat that you are my family. I have nothing but love and respect and tenderness for you, through all of my failings. Eternally asleep, my dreams walk about the city where you persist incognito. Butterflies settle. And my stone ears start to swell to rise to the level of a grand old city and then pop, I return like the Passaic River to write simply to think simply to know that there are no words simple enough for the feelings that I feel towards you which can best be approximated I feel blessed to have you in my life, to have been close to you in my life and that you are in no small part a piece of the definition of my life.

Eternally, I give you my blessings.