Restitution
Like lakes, I too
am refilled by the rain, sometimes
when I am inland.
I spend a quiet time
waiting for pain to make sense.
Enjoying the freedom that being on a train brings;
is it something that involves seeing
who I really am, when you claim
there is no one I can trust?
Or is this something else that you hope drives me insane;
that is projected as something that I must
integrate, somehow, into my water cycle?
That I try, and try, and try
over and over again to squeeze uphill.
Flash floods and new, vacuous rivers
leave me miraculously dry, and untouched
but also, somehow, still unfilled:
I once again do not get to experience
the thrill of knowing that I am not a mudslide,
not a valley developed and weathered too deep,
not a Dragon pattern that has already been tested and over-tried
to endless, perfect imperfection.
I am left to scavenge among the ruins that splot the landscape
that sinuously insinuate
that civilisation, in your bosom,
is still a functioning institution;
is still not actually a green, overpopulous lie;
is still somehow getting by.