"He"

"He"
By: Brendan Cadman



He wants to let down the walls,
he's built around his heart,
but the ever watchful sentinel at the top of his post,
can not make out what awaits him outside,
between the malevolent barbarians and weary travelers,
looking for a place that they can call home.

He wants to be the person he sees,
when he looks outside dark office windows,
in the deep trance of wishful daydreams. 
In the dim light of cozy pubs,
he drowns his inhibitions in a flowing river,
of burning whiskey and coldhearted ale, 
to make him feel like the person he, 
thinks that the other drunken patrons want him to be.
But in the blinding light of the early morning,
he can't remember the person he had become. 

He's been burnt by the fire,
of past mistakes and miscalculations,
because he's only human just like you man.
He covers the scars of fresh wounds,
on his arms with long black sleeves,
as he looks for ways to mend them.  

He yearns to speak the words in his mind,
that his crippling apprehension chains down to his tongue.
So he sits in the cover of haze filled basements,
as smoke and thoughts float through his brain.
Cathartically jotting down the waterfall of consciousness,
that runs out of his cerebrum,
his joy runs dry in a sobering drought,
brought on by ideas he can't claim as his own.

He provides forged maps to the ones, 
who brave the wilderness in search of his love,
He sends them down imprecisely marked trails,
of where he believes they want to go.
He misleads not to be dishonest,
but to satiate the appetite of his honest belief,
that what they'll find at the end of the road,
will not be precious enough to persuade them to stay. 

He spends his life giving happiness to others,
hoping one day it will spark the flame,
unable to ignite inside of him. 
These life giving gifts he can not reach,
like items on precariously stacked shelfs,
elusively out of reach and always within grasp,
so he wrote this poem and addressed it to himself.