NPM 2016: Day 9 {I Know}

I Know
September 30, 2015
Edited March 31, 2016

This is an excavation
of broken soul splinters
which rise daily from a grave
of ghosted words and lost meanings.
A lifetime ago
you knew
that I didn’t need your light
and I didn’t need your fire
for pneumatic revival
or survival beyond 3 a.m.
despite my panicked whispers
into that welcoming darkness–
that darkness which affirmed
my suffocating cries of bewilderment.
How could I not need light?
How could I not need fire?
Was it yours, monumentally,
which you could not relinquish
or were all the brilliant beacons of the world
somehow exclusive and untouchable?
When we reached 4 a.m.,
belief was tantamount to sorrow,
my grief peaking with such severity
you expressed quiet understanding.
“I know,” you said, and told me
to make paintings. You told me
to burn bridges and move mountains
and a dusty arsenal of other tasks
that all require
light
or fire.