We miss the Best in a sea of wanton worse. |
Whatever it takes to be (how many retakes to be) the best Beauty died somewhere beneath the well walked poles, the pinstriped sheets Died somewhere beneath our feet Under hard shoes with loose steps that never rest Beauty no longer lives within their chests Terminated, vacated, up and left. Too many rungs without relief And I don't want to be the best. Too thinly worn from winding clocks and dials, all crying crocodiles I hunt for the branch that breaks the tree Might one more slip away from me And I lose faith in what I see They've tendered freedom with denials And only I know my shoes' miles And yet you claim them all the while. You know no chains, but I am never free. What I might take with claws away, and rake the nape that gnaws away I'm almost sure you never owned Plaintive cries are only tones When no pain quite matches your own. And the long armies of like minds that dot your way Whose airborne thoughts all got away Who say what-all they ought to say They still don't make red hands okay. Only when you go and suffer all your own Can you say you know why the wise men stay. -M.I. Melis |