I Don't Want Your Voice to Move Me

On the eve of your departure

I sat beside you on the kitchen floor

You said, "Darkness has no virtue of its own

It's only darkness, what is lost is lost"

You were tired of metaphor

I once crawled along the ruins

Found you up above the timberline

Where the mountain stood before us like a bride

Narrow wide, the sun was honeycomb

It turned your white hair gold

I don't want your voice to move me

I don't want to be cracked open

I don't want the knot to loosen in my throat

To place a landmine down a rabbit hole

I'm no pale-faced saint

I'm like a dog always barking at a ghost

You know I don't go easy

I never made a myth of your disease

I hedged my bets with every soul I ever loved

Except for one

Honey, all I know of hope is throwing stones into the void

I don't want your voice to move me

I don't want to be cracked open

I don't want the broken headlight flicker

The bright pines, the silver sigh of the moon behind you

When I find you, driftwood bones in fog and smoke

The pull of the yoke, a knotted oak, a joke

A hymn we only spoke and never sung

Those of us born in loss

You know we only trust the line on the horizon

When I find you

I don't want your voice to move me