a shape left in trees and other poems

(55)
how can i be sure i'm on the right path?
i can't.

my path is not something that waits to be revealed.
not something i find once the map is mine.

my path is a shape left in trees,
a branch bouncing back
a bird now in flight.

(56)
at some point, i will die.
that's the single truth i know.

lately, though, i'm not so sure.

yes, of course, i will die.
but until it is my time,
the only fact i can confidently prove
is that i am alive.

(57)
when i was younger,
i drank deep dents into bottles of booze.
i believed alcohol could unlatch the true me
and send him into the world, into action.

i just had this hunch, this bet, that there was someone
pure, angelic, and good at my core.
yet could only get out through the portal of booze.

eventually
i drank so much
and for so many years
that something seemed to die inside.
or maybe outside.
either way,
i no longer felt something sacred in my spirit,
no longer believed it could be conjured
through the alchemy
of vodka and ice and lime.

and without an inner me to drink for,
i lost the desire to drink at all.

but now, maybe five years later, the light's returned.
i feel my highest self still there after all.
i feel a pure essence asking again to emerge.

how will i try to set you free this time?
through nothing more intoxicating than wholehearted love.
this is the gift i will give.
over and over and over.
until the person who receives it is me.