melissaahowells - Bitter Medicine

who knows
what is to be
remembered
or erased

you cannot tell me this
brother
cannot explain the wily tricks
of your memory

does time erase
the past
anything of your pain
I don't think it does
yet
I see time erasing you

I never intended you
to be morose fodder
for this poem
but here you are
barely
in the flesh

I know you are someone
who's been tricked
by time

for you
today is often the past
and the present
hardly seems to happen

the past
has erased the present
for you
but time hasn't
erased
how you remember it

you and the past
constant companion
how do you
keep it at bay
with your books
re-reading them

how do you
keep it at bay
with your long steps and endless walking
twenty-six blocks
to no where

doing your best
to kill off time
with little effect

time is tapping you
on your shoulder

you don't dare to
look into
its unforgiving face

you don't understand
there's a subtle grace
in surrender
in
taking my hand
or anyone's

time
will run out soon enough
if you do not grasp
what is
before you

I see you
differently now
no longer the once tall mountain
distant, proud
but
more a gaunt hollowed
broken shell

I look into your face
there I see time
crawling grimly towards
a present that refuses to
deliver you from
your past

yours
will not be
a good death
should you die
choosing not to persevere

and yet
I am here
to watch It
watching over
you

I'm angry
frightened
this is surely
bitter medicine
not
peace

give me an explanation
God, why do You allow
this
to
happen
do something anything
if You are there

someone desperately
needs to hear You
speak to him
directly

Now

or forever be silent
to my unforgiving heart

Legal Copyright December 1, 2016
author/writer retains all legal rights for this work
for this site title: Meloo/Melissa Ann Howells
straight from her Tilt-a-World

7:14 pm Thursday
4:47 am reedited Friday December 2.2016
12:21 am reedited Tuesday December 6, 2016

notes: refer to my other poem
I SEE YOU..I see you as a distant mountain
I see you as a foreign shore
a small pinprick on some abysmal atlas
and falling leaf on an ancient forest floor...

this was written long ago about my brother
it is also on this poetry site. I SEE YOU