Doppelganger

And you.
I know you... or part of you
and you know me... or part of me
pieces of us recognize each other
like looking in a mirror
Doppelganger speaks
stubborn pride
fire
passion
fierce and silent pain
strength
knowledge of ages
something deep & timeless & knowing
that you just can't explain
knowing about people
and need
We both know how love
can just spring to life
unbidden
how wanting is endless
and reassurance aches
poignant
necessary
how most often loving is
just that millisecond off
over and over through centuries
and yet

we both believe just enough
in the one in thousands of times
that it's just that millisecond on
even while we wrap our logic
around probability
some stubborn tiny spark in our souls
whispers
possibility. magic. forever.
I don't love you
now
I ache with knowing how that feels
with knowing how hope hurts
even while expectation nods as though it knew
how wanting fills you like water
and more, with knowing how
knowing that one will survive through
disappointment hurts more
a lifetime more
I know how bleakness & empty
stretch most painfully forward
into an eternity of tomorrows
Yet all I can offer you right now
is logic
Any passion I felt.. I feel..
- Oh, yes, I felt it -
is banked
buried under heaps of ash so deep
I don't know if embers for you still burn
Or how deeply they are buried
I cannot gauge their fire
Desire... affection... need...
Vital things, needing things,
I can't give them to you.
now
even when I know how & why you need them

It is cold logic I have... cold comfort
about how simple being together is so easy
in the few moments we've had
more of those - with no expectations -
would be a lovely way to begin to stretch time
I could give you those small easy moments
if you were here... at least those
easy to talk.. and that's no small thing
easy to touch...
and you wanting me.. no small thing either
being brave enough to say so
and brave enough to hear no
we could be oh so prickly stubborn might not work
yet it could be such an interesting adventure
possibilities lie divergent: cold, stony
rich & full
I am certain, not ever uninteresting

But once simple passion & desire
go beyond.. to love... well,
the tentacles of love that I grow
grow deep. They are not plug & play
and the people I let in, I let in deep
so deep there is no bottom
fathoms upon fathoms of caring
they intertwine, all the different sorts of them
one kind of love twisting into the next
until separating them becomes impossible
that deep, & I never stop wanting them
never stop needing them there needing me back
Easier to never feel one or another kind of love
if it's going to go away,
and it hasn't been so long ago
that I hoped.. again... in something that would never go away
that it would grow a lifetime - blooms & thorns together
but green & growing & full of all the sorts of magic
we have been pouring into it
Funny how fear begats fear
How asking for something
stating what you need
so often gives you
exactly the opposite of what you ask
not funny-ha-ha, of course

Perhaps I fear for nothing,
and then sureness in what I've already invested
might return
providing you & I more fragrant paths
but time ticks
Pendulum heavy swings back... and forth..
scores of shallow slices weeping bits of self
and with each swish, I hear more loudly
the ever more desperate beat of my heart
in the darkness of this silence
which surrounds me ever more deeply
the voices I hear, beloved as they are
are not the one I need, nor asked for here

If I find
that which I am most afraid of
A gardener's nightmare, to trim one thorny
beautiful delicate branch of caring
away from the twisting mass...
I had a rose bush in my yard
which produced the most beautiful blooms
Old, many canes
all twisted together
I tried to save it, when witches broom
unexpected
blighted one thrusting attempt at the light
More than just my skin bore the tale
Of that desperate attempt to
tear out one bit that wasn't working
And all those scratches, sweat, pain
didn't save it. The virus is inexorable
in its destruction
Finally, I had to cut it down
Next, I will have to tear the roots out of the very ground
Let ground lie fallow
Before I can try again

If I find
that which I am most afraid of
I won't have anything to give you
to mirror this precious passion you throw at me
for I don't know how long. Perhaps long.
I could not trust again so soon
Could not let footsteps no matter how tender
well intentioned drop upon the raw nerve endings
of a once more freshly severed soul
It's not fair of me to say wait.. to say love me anyway
to say hope... to ask you to keep battering away
on only a spark of possibility
to take friendship on a hope & a dare
when you are as bold and clear as I
that friendship alone is not the thing
for which you roll your dice
I can't even promise it could grow
once the ground healed and became
something once again that can support life
I see the possibilities you see
I know
and in knowing, I know I cannot promise
falsely
And I know... I think... that if I were tossed
the same rotten plum
I'd have the same tone of finality
I heard in your voice, carefully controlled
tinged with the same seed of doubt
yet grimly holding onto the same stubborn kernel of what if
still glimmering somewhere in hope
I myself would most likely
begin to kill hope, put away possibility,
drown the possible future in nothing & stillnesss
until it quit its muffled screaming.
I have spent too much of my life choking the life
out of unreturned hopes & dreams
Thinking of it again... doing it again churns my stomach

But as much alike as we are
We are not the same
What will you do, since I want very much
to offer you something
and yet have so little
know nothing, am getting nowhere
and cannot begin to promise
the everything you hope for?