Poetry Journal, 2000

If you hated me you could have killed me                                                                    

                smote me dead

threw the lightning bolt that cut me off at the knees.

But that would have been too easy.

The time that the car narrowly missed me as I

crossed the street,

the time that she pushed me down the stairs but

I stood up, dusted myself off and carried on—

you know it could have gone differently.

When I contemplated the costs of living as they ranked against

the costs of death,

you could have tipped the scales,

pointed the way home.

Instead I shivered, walked past the knives,

and lived to be stabbed a thousand more times.

I am supposed to believe in the superiority of breathing as I

stand here

                gasping.

I am made to believe that all will be understood as you

speak to me

                in pig Latin.

I could embrace what hysterical preachers teach,

denounce those who make me question my faith.

Instead I am too aware of their pain and their fear.

It could have gone another way.

I could have been allowed even this flawed and thorny

path out of

here.

In my dream he held my hand as I wondered what he

was doing there,

entirely too happy and still unable to see.

You take even my midnight comfort away from me.

I seem resolved here, you know, although for what has

not been made clear.

Every hope, every sneaking suspicion, every wild and

grand fantasy I watched disappear like helium balloons in

the pale and infinite sky.

I wanted to hold on but was cut loose,

left broken but still living on the

ground.

It was not to be.

It was not to be.