Always, por Nicholas Ryan Sampson

Always

I wrote this

while thinking of you

so I guess you could say

this poem is eight years

in the making

Just like you and I

(2014)

Everyone sees god in a different light but I was born without eyes

The road is long and winding like nothing you can imagine Too many off ramps to count but too few in hindsight

All that I know how to do is write about death without dying and write about life

I grew up in a house built in 1937 long before codes and regulations and sometimes

I was like a rain cloud over a small garden and dammit if you weren’t that garden so full of flowers that I fell in love

I thought I could drink you away but I had to stop being so drunk on you first

The hands of this watch haven’t moved since the last time you did and I’m not sure if I’m ready to hear the ticking

I see poems that need to be written scrawled in the shape of your smile and the lines of your face

To put it simply each beat of your heart is a gift that I receive with the anticipation of a child at christmas

I awoke in the dark next to you and more alone than ever I was amazed to hear your heart beating from

I write sharp words with a sharper knife on page after page of what might as well be the skin of my back

I hope this is postmarked before my death certificate is dat… but you’ll know why if it is or if it isn’t If you get this in time

Hope in another form but no fewer letters and I’ve been hoping for these past eight years so I’ll just keep on

I’ve kept my eyes closed most of these past eighteen years because I find it just as dark

My heart was paper  now folded six times over  to make it harder  to tear  I only hope that 