progression to the here and now

i made up my mind to be miserable,
racing against life in an old cliche.
i followed habits to survive,
loathing life and wishing
to see everyone turn away.
i made up my mind to be miserable,
settling not for the present,
and its treasures in plain view.
i hiked to the top of a mountain,
saw the clouds below me,
covering all that i knew at the time.

i see everything that i missed;
it plays in memories i am humbled
to have at all.
and now i am here, where
consciousness began, apart from
the earliest enchantments of appalachia.
i am thinking of the past year.
the late summer sun is resting low:
before you can cup a hand over your eyes
its warmth becomes a courier to another time.
i am there again, walking home from class.
we've just said our goodbyes, and
i am constructing another poem in the air.
was it to do with the weather,
that tree in the park transitioning to october,
or the darkness of my apartment?
no photograph i took,
or language relayed could illustrate
that which my heart spoke.

i stayed away;
i feigned disinterest;
i took you off my contact list.
it was a resignation you caught in my voice.
you told me "i'm lonely too,"
and as in everything you said or did,
you were the person i never expected.

five months' sojourn besotted by re-education
reconstructed my shattered mind
through an objective listener
led me across the frozen pond
i'd tempered in bitter analysis.
my words to you at the close
of this firestorm were only apologies.
an apology in a mailbox
to someone loved and bonded
is perhaps a frank request.
though it would take more life,
more relations with several unworthies,
there is now worth in my tone:
there is merit in this ado.

you gave me your book
but i did not read it;
you gave me your friendship
but i did not want to need it.
i was the fragility on the line,
always falling in love,
chasing cliches and fancies.
but they all of them faided,
for truly, inconspicuously
none of them were you.