I Think This Time I’ll Try Rewind
Set the key
Wind up the time
The sum of my moments,
This existence of mine
Cogs spin; sprockets grind
Through my clockwork body
And gearbox mind
Until rust and wear and disrepair
Make inevitable life’s decline.
With final breath no more confined
My light slips
These ties that bind
And so unwinds
This context of mine
Until—at last!—reborn
One more time
And so it goes, the cycle refined
Down to unwind–wind or nevermind.
But maybe this time I’ll just rewind.
If I could just rewind
To a previous time
Unbreak this fractured mind of mine
Pull the string unwind, unbind
Untie these ropes,
Unfold what blinds, expose the rhymes
See what’s inside
That space that lives
between these lines
If I could just this time
Rewind….
I’m trying to find
One at a time
The points of Me
that define this line:
I know my number
And my sign
Got a read on my human design.
And thus unveil
the patterns of my mind
And with these maps
Did treasure find?
Nothing concrete. They’re just guides.
Lamp posts near the wardrobe—
No. Nevermind.
Rise. Repeat. Unwind. Rewind.
And rewind. AND Rewind.
Skipping backwards through my time
So that I might find
Some fault within my armored rime
A weak point in the impenetrable hide
One single spot that ends the glide
Of the black arrow—No, nevermind.
Just another allusion.
Let me rewind.
And try again one more time.
Select these words that complete my rhyme
Build the rhythm as I stack these lines.
But steps towards perfection
Are perfection’s decline.
Recede! Retreat! Like ebbing tide
Shift the weights
And the shackles that bind
Me to my deceptions
And my throne of lies
That conceals the child—
This reflection of mine!
A broken child with malformed mind
Punished for breaking
Rules he could not abide
Who could naught but fail
By scholarly design.
And so I was taught—
I WAS TAUGHT—
To hate him.
To hate me.
At that I excelled
Learned to despise
All the while hoping for the end.
Nor would I ever again
Seek once more to unwind–wind!
No, when the gears wind down this time
When the choice is once more mine
I’ll simply say “No, nevermind.”
After the end, when my context I unwind
The cycle be broken, be damned!
Next time: Nevermind!
But then…SHE
Started to walk the path beside me:
A soul that resonated a joyous melody
Hers a different rhyme than mine.
Hers a different artistry.
Similar…and yet so…foreign, so contrary
My magnetic polar, and thus my gravity
Pulling, pulling, ever pulling me
From my dark reality
Through her perspective
She helps me to see
My goodness and kindness and vibrancy.
Where my eyes are clouded
Hers unshrouded.
She takes in the forest
AND all the trees
From base of roots
To the canopy of the leaves
She reaches into my soul—
Into my soul!—
To untie ropes and loosen knots
Unlearn the lessons, dispel those thoughts
Unbind, unfold, undo the me
That hates the me I used to be.
To help me see me as she sees me.
T’was not through Chance did we align
But rather the hand of Fate disguised
Moving pieces to coincide
That our paths collide, combine.
A pattern that the Wheel devised.
And so we’ve done this dance
a thousand times
I know her words, and she knows mine
No need to look, nor anything to hide
Our hands entwined
With mirrored stride
My soul’s same-stuff in her resides.
Sink or swim
Fall or fly
We’ll face the world and when we die
Dissolve once more into Divine
We wind together
We reset our time
Destined each the other find
Nevermore the need in life rewind.