the reason.

I searched every place
my heart and eyes would carry me,
the highest carriages
the lowest spaces
beneath my feat.

I looked forward through time
and back through dying,
ashen remnants of the past
inside and outside
of all that had ended and
all that might last.

I remembered every word
that rolled of your tongue,
like rhythmic waters,
a babbling brook.
dead lust
and silent fuss.

I gave re/dance to every song
that had ever moved us
like loose limbs
in a timid breeze
a hope to cling to
a lie, believed.

I searched through the words
you put to paper
promises,
in black and white.
Mementos of the thrill
and the fight.

Eyes open
or clicked to my cheeks,
lids flushed down
and wet with the stench
of wholesome tears,
I could not find the way,
No good or bad season,
I could not hold down the reason.

Jason Christopher Johnson
December 6, 2013

All away.

You wept onto stone shoulders,
There could have been no comfort here.
This body grew weary
from the fear and fight
you brought.
The nights had grown so long
so cold.
All the notes,
flattened inside the song.

You spoke to deafened ears,
A debt, unpaid
A death, unmourned
Never knowing,
when the life had left.
the most quiet, final breath.

You reached to grasp a limp hand.
There could have been no hold here.
These arms had become simple
from the bearing of pain
you had sewn.
The days became fluidly
staccato.
no milestones,
nothing wholesome,
no thing right,
only the wrong.

You fought an empty battle,
Weapons formed
in the war,
languished near
and faltered far.
Shooting cannons of vapid
promise
into simple, silly ruin.

And, I pulled together
all your holds,
and words,
the promises and the hope
spoken with might.
and all the dreams that
you brought to my feet,
I piled them low and neat
and in the light of my new day,
put them all away.

Jason Christopher Johnson
December 6, 2013