Sketches of My Escape
“The clock started over when we got together
I once measured time from the moment of my first breath
Now I measure my existence waiting for my last
Hoping all along that it ends with you
Somewhere, in your arms
Calling and crawling ‘away from the light’
Struggling to stay together
Headfirst through any weather
I want to be together
Please can we stay together?
Because alone, I’d be alone forever”
I didn’t want it to sound like this – so I started over…
I let words flow freely from my mouth-
they guide me to salvation.
They close the distance between me
and my Happiness.
I preach them on the street corner:
Proclamations of the beauty that is,
not that once was, spoken as a gentleman.
That same drive brought me to you
like a kid on the road at full-recklessness,
his eyes closed;
I think I crashed when I met you.
Slowly, I broke down
and lusted for the destruction
of my life’s illustrations.
Now I only paint pictures of you,
and they’re gorgeous portraits, I must say.
I only hope that the Fox out of frame
is there to stay, because he looks a lot like me,
and even though he’s not the breed you’d expect to see
with a girl like her, that picture just makes sense.
It hasn’t been the same since you burned it.
So when I wake alone
and look in the mirror to see smoke,
I put it out the best way I can think of,
With lots and lots of water.
The kind that makes it difficult to breathe.
T.A. McElrath