flock of phantoms

blackbirds … innumerable … clouds and washes of them I grin to myself - symbolism … you taught me that and more … (and less) you taught me the difference between love and lust … and Love but you used a dull knife to cut, and those wounds fester … I still tend them, despite decades you were younger than I but far more experienced … wiser I could never repay the tender patience you showed me - (precious, that) I tried … with effort and sincerity (and apportioned bent for the fleshly arts) but, you see your callow honesty was covenant to me as sure as moonlight on mountain snow and in my wide-eyed faith I failed to see the changes of maturity (or perhaps REFUSED to) and your direction snuck up on me - that altered course was hidden from me by the mist of hope until what should have been a gentle curve became a roadblock a cold, stark, unscalable bastion that impacted headlong and at full tilt … it brought forth a part of you I had never known and its cleft … was cruelty something I had not imagined you capable of thus … the deepest wound was not the reality of losing you or the knowledge that our oaths - made in the purity of youth - had become thistles on the wind, it was that there had been this ruthless, unkind part of you all along - a bitterly contrary essence of your soul that I had never seen in the countless times I had swum deep your glimmery gaze … each, now, as a blackbird in my sky just as enigmatic just as untold, and just as … unreachable. Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden, March 4, 2024