looking inward

 still not talking to myself.

i'm getting used to my new room

how it's all that's mine and why

is this so important to me now?

a spce to exist. some people

only have their car. or less.

need a space away, breathing room

it seems that the thing i sought 

a love that endures despite windbown

deposits of disappointed expectations, 

  stacks of small

betrayals -of -the -ideal

comes at heavy price. 

selfishess must be curtailed or

reinvented as willing sacrifice.

you must love your partner 

as you do your child.

must is a hard concept.

i don't mean it in a commanding way

more like a natural need, like water

not so much voluntary as essential.

you must love one as yourself.

but if you hate yourself that is not

good love to share, is it?

i don't know why my hands should shake

at this truth, why all these typos show up.

it makes writing twice as hard, going back

and correcting mistakes, yet that 

is more effective

than the "sorry"s strewn along the tides

of our relationship.

yet i love you, remind you to remind me

why i crave your palm on my skin

washing the pain away

floating on the gulf .

sorrow's origin story jetskies

across the waves, buzzyly 

solidifying belief.  you knock

on my door, offer to

 make me breakfast

because you're cooking anyway.

 love is loving

the imperfections because 

nobody's perfect.

thank you for knocking.

****

this smallish space i've carved 

through almost 40 years of working man

is not all -i -got -and -it's -mine. 

it's not mine at all. it could be gone

as quickly as a phone call, a bullet, 

an ICE raid. pick up this shell

and toss it in the bay type catastrophe. 

and where would i dwell if left alive then?

here, in the heart, where i am perpetually

young, healthy and capable of living

under a bridge if it comes to that.

lol, vagabond, what will you take with you then?