I can’t Help It…Or You…

I can't help it sometimes, I get lost, 
In some Oregon rainforest gloom.
Some lost December south coastal rain. 
Sliding and slipping down a golden sand dune,
Slipping and sliding on downhill forest trails holding onto
A tree wreathed in moss that hangs down
Calling out
Hey Bear!
When the only danger
Was the blood that flowed in you,
Dipping into the mud
I walked thinking of you,
I walked thinking it through
And still it came up adding the same,
However I divided it,
Whereever we roamed
There was no other solution
To the problem
Of your blood and you. 

And, yes, it might be a crime
To want to head back together to 2009 - 
To head back to Tokyo,
Or to 2017 Cass Lake Minnesota -
To the cows and the campfires
To the crows and the turning wheels mired
In those trails that hands make
In the brightness of an electric mind. 

I should have been a barren field
Sowed with salt.
I should have been cast to the sea:
I cannot survive it
Or me. 

And your footsteps still go blue

In my mind, back on that beach.

And the sea still glitters too, 

And your soft brown eyes that

Accused me of trying

Too hard

To survive

You.


So I wrote you a letter, 
I told you how to make it better.
I told you how to make it go easier,
To make it go kinder, 
But you took my concern and warnings as instructions,
My protection as an unwanted construction -
And did everything on that list
That I warned you not to:
I am no traitor to you
I tried to give you my world.
I can't help you
But I tried
Not to leave you behind. 
Instead you left me.
Heartbroken.

And I swore by that whirlpool
I found on the day you departed,
While I stood there in a daze
Wondering if the best thing 
I could do would be to jump in
And free the world of me,
Since I had failed you
Failed
Entirely to survive it or you,
I swore that
That I would not abide
In this circus of your making.
No I would not abide
But instead take my chances
With that sweet future denied - 
Take my chances with
What was left of you 
In me and me in you.

I threw myself on your mercy
Which you denied. 
I threw myself on the high tide
While you cried
Down a telephone line
Leaving me hanging 
As you screamed.
I dashed my head on the stone
You gone gone gone
I drank the bottles dry alone.
I bled for you
I ran red for you
I fled for you
I played dead for you,
And you?
You ruined my nails
Leaping off the Devil's Punchbowl
While I grabbed you, 
Held you to safety as you bit and kicked
Lashed out and spitting
Tore me apart as I 
Tried to stop you falling
Onto the rocks below.
Sacrificing me
For you.

I'm sorry.
It isn't in my make-up
to let myself go,
Even if I had to let
Go of you. 
Im sorry:

I don't think I can survive
It
Or me.
Or you.