Fool's Gold

help me learn to stop learning the hard way, baby,
I promise this time I’ll get it if you just
curl your legs up next to mine and wait
for the silence to start. I am tired of filling up
the space with heartbeats and dripping sounds, because
all they do is kill time. I am just about ready to stop
being ready for disaster. I am just about ready
to be ready for something sweet to touch my lips
all of a sudden. at this point it is hard
to say what winds me up anymore.
maybe it is the sound of the clock ticking or maybe
it is only the anticipation of the moment it will break.

and I swore to myself I would never write
drunk poems again, but… tonight the trees look fine
and long like the spokes of a wheel I want to turn,
like something is happening under the moon, and
I want to be a part of it. I have not felt this way
in a good long while. maybe I should
snatch up the moment while it’s still here.

so be with me in this starlight sentence between
stanzas that don’t make much sense, because
all I want you to be is a teacher. help me understand
that life is often a bag of rocks, and you keep
reaching in expecting a fleck of gold,
but every time you pull something out it is only
another gray chunk of stone.
you tell yourself, “this time, things will be different.
this time I’ll get lucky. this time, this time.”
but you dig around again and come up short.

and I’m looking for that precious metal
in your eyes tonight, baby, but I think
it is only fool’s gold, like it always has been.
but there is a strange toxic comfort
in knowing you will be wrong.
at least you can count on something.

so it is 3 am and I am asking you
to fool me. glow yellow in the night sky
and pretend you are a gem. just teach me how
to un-learn everything I have told myself.
because I am hunting for twigs on the forest floor
and I keep finding moss but missing
the crunch underfoot.
I know the little branches are there, but

my fingers fumble over them and I settle
for rocks instead. I’ll keep reaching
down into that bag.
maybe this time, this time
maybe this time
I’ll pull out the gold from your green eyes
and melt it into a necklace for you
maybe this time I won’t be so
damn foolish.

maybe this time.
maybe.