You May Never Know

There are things you may never know.

You may never know how often I think of you, how the very light of morning brings you from the depths of my heart to the surface of my mind. My mind embraces you in the pink hued rebirth of day as I know you again in the awareness of my first breath of the conscious day.  I feel alive simply in the thought of you.

You may never know how I feel you when the cool spring breeze gently teases the sweat on my skin. I feel you in the desire of my body and in each drop of water that soothes my thirsty soul. I know the truth because I feel you, and I know the lie because I pretend that you don’t exist.

You may never know that I found love with you. How I smiled through the tears knowing you were happy. How I flinched with joy as the pain consumed me whole, knowing you were flying high somewhere. You may never know just how much you helped me grow, and how free I was in your absence to discover the wonder that was always there. You may never know how losing was my greatest win, and how depths of the greatest suffering I have ever known led me to the highest highs I have ever seen.

You may never know how cleansing the muddy water has been, or how refreshing the stench was to my unconscious mind. You may never know how high I flew with you in the wind our moments made, or how hard I landed, broken and mangled in the twisted weeds of your lies and deceit. You may never know a thing, but that would be more than you knew before.

You may never know how your crooked mind bent me, or how strong your switch taught me to be. You may never know the full rage of my hatred, or the full scope of my love. You have grown so distant, so skewed in the tortured, distorted rows chaotically dug in the infertile fields you have plowed. There you left a baby to die, a boy to fester, and a man to rise again above the mud and sludge of the wasteland you tried to create for him.

You may never know how much I love you, and how burning the bridge that connected the infernal anger to the man whose torch it was to bear, was the only way I could survive. You may never know how forgiven you are, and how this life, this story, this simple prose is not at all about you.

From the harshest desert to the lush, green oasis of my life I’ve walked unsteady, but sure, toward the clarity that was always mine to have. I have torn through thick brush and danced in soft meadows along the way, and the contrasts have taught me things you may never know. Above your protests and your challenges I stand, knowing where I am simply through the memories of where I was. Beyond attachment to that weathered past the sun shines brightly on my naked back, a testament of my human bonds. The shadow ahead of me is the only thing that knows where I am going, while the light behind me knows surely where I’ve been, even as my feet are firmly planted in the soil of my present moment. The burning pain on my bare skin has always driven me forward toward the shade my shadow knows exists, and while you may never know where the source of shade will come, I will hug the tree and bless the storm clouds that often give me respite.

Such is the depth of my depravity, the hopeless in the greatest hope I’ve ever known.

You may never know that as the darkness deepens into the thickest part of night, as my eyes grow so weary they cannot help but close, a thought of you will creep into my heart, creating dreams of what will be when the dawn returns anew. A chuckle comes, and then a sigh, and perhaps a lone tear from my weary eye. You may never know, and for that I am all too grateful.

Goodnight. To all of you, my blessed teachers, my unsightly demons, my impatient students, I love you. To the wondrous night I surrender, and the coming day I pray for yet another chance. To the one who will love me through the cracks in my solid frame, I pray for your arrival. To the one who will love me through the blinks in my steady gaze, I hope for your embrace.  To the one who inspires in me a great union, I promise you my frailty. You may never know how long this journey’s been.