Regret is a kind keeper

I can feel the gentle pull. I can feel the seductive ways of complacency. Blaming the lack of time or the lack of motivation, turning away from the one thing that is the cause of such great pleasure. Such impossible pleasure. I must beg for help. Help to find my way back. Through thick glass, through mirrors that bend each and every way, distort the path, the vision. Through this tempting forest of savagery, through fire and lazy afternoons, I try to find my way back to the source of such great pleasure. The way back to my words. My precious words that keep me in line and hold my broken heart when the gentle snow covers the cracks on the sidewalks outside. Softly, melodiously, gently, almost invisibly covering all the lands, one flake at a time.

Regret holds me hostage, a kind and deceptive keeper. Almost unseen, almost hidden from the heart that is pure. Only in moments of doubt, in moments of grandeur does it appear and then full blast drills holes in the heart, in the soul. We know each other by first names, there is nothing I have not let regret have in my life. The open sea is my refuge. On a makeshift raft I pedal towards fear. Each moment closer, determined to reach dry land, but the sands greeting me on the shore cut my bare feet, burn the soft skin, play with me like fire burning. But it is still regret that saves me, still fear that pushes me. The road chosen will be the one I turn back from should I have the power. Wearily keep walking and with longing eyes look back at the distance travelled. The distance seems impossible to retract and my choice is only that to march forward. No chance to pause or rewind. Regret is a kind keeper, seldom allowing to glance backwards, abundantly giving rise to better the self at the craft, path, mission chosen. Regret is a kind keeper, unspoken.

You should stay unconcerned. These things that I dream, these words that I write, these turbulent waters that I navigate are steered well clear of you. I may never make it to shore. I may never find home. I may never see anything but these stick figures trying to point me in the right direction. And the incredible weight, the tethering pull of the anchor blinds me with pain. My heart breaks every time. Breaks every time for you. My path is covered with thorny vines, traps and mirages. The burden of your presence would kill us both, I must leave and you must stay. Be the keeper of your own illusions. Set the wind in my sails and fasten these friends: regret and fear, then gently continue, silently depart, aim for murkier, shallower, different waters. We are off. Make sure you never long for me again. Make sure your heart has cut all chords to mine. Only like this can we ever be free.

My time may never come. It may never be more than this: it may never be bigger, it may never be truer, it may never be more honest. I may be forgotten, left lying in the arms of regret. Like a beast then regret will hold the parts that are valuable and nobody will ever find. If this is my fate then let it be. If I am to put up a fight, then let the struggle begin. This is my story, one for nobody else to write. I may end up dead in the water, I may sail my ship of safety then sink it. I may find the courage to open my heart to you, I may never have the power to let you back in. I might befriend my kind keeper, eventually find  a sunny afternoon to escape from my self made prison. I may be all right then.

I may just be fine the way I am.