I Have Tried, Failed, and for this I am Sorry

I need to speak your language. I need to speak in a way that you will understand. I need to remember your language, the first language I was taught, in order to talk to you so that you will hear me.

For this I am sorry.

My word will need to become fallible,  and I need to take this personally.  I will need to again make assumptions. In fact the only agreement I have made with myself that will remain intact is that I will try my best. I will try my best to see things as you see them, not as I see them. I will try my best to assume what you assume, and say what you want said, in the way you want it said. I will try.

I have failed you. I have not been fixed to your satisfaction. I don’t see the story the way you want, and I don’t hear the music the way you do. I have tried, of course, to be who you want me to be. I have made a liar out of myself in order to be the version of me you wanted, you needed, you required. I pretended to bloom when my flower had not yet even formed, and I tried like hell to fly when I wasn’t even yet hatched from my own egg’s shell.

For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I have failed to dance the steps you have laid out before me. I have failed to hear the rhythm of the song you’ve sung to me, and I have failed to remember the chorus as you have written it. I failed to remember when the woodwinds were to enter, and when the percussion was to fade. I just could not get the song written within me to quiet down long enough to hear the song you wished me to know, to hear, to dance to, and to play. I tried, and I failed, and for this I am sorry.

I have failed you.  I could not end my philosophical nature, and I could not stop asking questions. I can remember as a child, beaten and broken, asking the most fundamental question “Why?”.  That question kept me sane in the most insane moments, and as the answers came I began to understand so much more than anyone could teach me. I could not stop asking the questions not because I love the question, but because I love the answer. I know you valued my silence, those moments when I had no questions and therefore had no answers. I lied to you, pretended that silence reigned and answers were not offered. I tried to be the type of noise you wanted to hear, and I failed. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I tried to see the art as you saw it, and I tried to blend the colors as you wished. I tried to play with the blends of the palette you gave me, and I tried to make sense of them as they touched the canvas of our lives. I tried to hold the brush as you suggested while shading in the shadows of my life with the brushstrokes you prescribed. I did what I could to pretend the shadows were not there, that the voices that had always pushed me forward were now dormant parts of a past that had been forgiven. I worked to prove to you that nothing existed outside of the world we had created when, in fact, it all was very real in my mind. You could not see the love I brushed freely between the frame while I tried hard to remain focused on what never existed for you. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I cannot see love as you do, and I cannot find the silence within me to just allow it to be. I can’t speak my truth without it becoming a lie to you, and I can’t hear your truth without being lied to. I have seen a Great Place, and have eaten of its fruit and tasted the waters from its clear streams.  I have felt its silky sands between my toes and basked in the gentle breezes of its shores. It’s hard for me to remain silent in the face of such a place, let alone not share it with you, my friend, my love, my sacred self. I try, and fail for reasons unknown to the point I wonder if the effort is worth the joy it costs me. Then, you throw your stones and stamp your feet, and I wonder if the joy is worth the price as well. For this, I am sorry.

I have failed you, and in the process have been left unsure in wave after wave of doubt bound in unbridled certainty. An anger builds up within me, reminiscent of a time and place so foreign yet so much like home. I have tried to shed that vein of pulsating heat within me, and in return it has come back to whip me across my back like a withered stick, leaving blistering welts of insanity in a testament to the practice. I am but a man, after all, and I’m not sure why they desire a god in my place. Is the punishment I bear too great for me alone?  I do not know, and for this, I am sorry.

I have failed you. I have dreamt of your luscious breasts and the sound of your beating heart as I press my ear close to them. I have tasted you firmly upon my mouth, and I have breathed your breath and bared my soul to you a million times in my mind, yet never uttered a word to your waiting ear. I have traced unimaginable lines among the countless bumps I have raised upon your skin, yet never pressed one finger to your supple flesh. I have felt you press into me a thousand times as my mouth kisses desire upon your waiting neck, yet I have never once held you in my arms. I wait, wondering if you can hear the subtle whispers from my soul in the light breezes that wisp upon your waiting ears, knowing that if you can you may not even recognize the voice. I feel afraid, and for that I am sorry.

I have failed you. As the winter’s morning sun glistens upon my icy window I can feel the pain coursing through my body. I beg forgiveness for some unseen sin, and ask for no more than I deserve be written in the annuls of my life. The me I know is not the me you care to see, and the me you see is not the me I care to know. Do I succumb to the pressures of being your friend, or do I simply concede to the art bestowed upon my canvas in the manner few can find beauty in? Do I choose to stay my course, or do I choose to force love to again grace my battered timbers? I want the warm glow to light my way, so why can’t I seem to see it? I am lost I suppose, and for this I am sorry.

In this struggle to be clear I have lied to you in the most honest way I can. I have poured my cup out, and claimed the emptiness as some magical place upon which I offer you a drink. I have lost my way, but I don’t care, I just want the pain to end soon, and have it serve a purpose. I want to run through the leaves stiffened by the winter’s grasp. I want to walk through the woods I love beyond my words to describe. I want to carry you high upon my back through the foggy mist of changing times. Heal me, my love, my light, my greatest friend. Feel me, all of you, and know me real beyond the idiocy of our minds conjoined in endless chatter. Here, there, everywhere we find the love we say we seek, and realize that it was there all along.

So now I fade, to focus on the truth I know exists beyond the lies we have agreed to tell each other. I will see you when we crack the surface, embrace the depths, and breath our lives anew.

Peace.