I SAY YOUR NAME TO MYSELF OUT LOUD

I SAY YOUR NAME TO MYSELF OUT LOUD

 

I say your name to myself out loud all these years later

and it tastes like a stranger in my mouth

like a bird caught in a chimney

beating its wings against black tin

like a word caught in the throat of the night

that wants to get out.

To you it looks like freedom.

But to me it’s an exorcism.

When I want to let my ghosts go

I just pick any dandelion in the fall

and blow.

I don’t hang on to them any longer

than fire hangs on to its smoke.

If you take your delusions too seriously

you can turn a legend into a joke.

You smother a baby phoenix in its crib.

And I’m kind of glad

your lies don’t inform me anymore

about how unreliable the truth is

and I suppose it’s some sign of moral progress

when the liars learn to fib

in a halfway house for the truth

they can’t face up to yet

like methadone to cold turkey.

I’ve kept coming back to you

like a sexy soul to a cosmic body

every autumn since you left like a koan

that couldn’t overcome its doubt.

I haven’t seen you in years

except in my mind

but you still don’t believe me

over and over and over again

when I recall how I told you

things would work out.

The dream we wanted to be

wakes up from us

and moves on

like a scar

that thinks of the pain

of who we weren’t to each other

as trivial

compared to who we were.

That’s the trouble with dreams

that lie to themselves

about coming true.

They don’t understand themselves

when they do.

 

PATRICK WHITE