Do you realize
my frustration when I fail every day
to pour my whole soul onto paper?
What once seemed so simple
now comes over me
like an overwhelming infinity
I cannot tie down with shallow words.
Language is not enough.
I wish I were an artist,
not a writer
suffocating in scribbled alphabets that,
like rusty beads threaded onto an endless thread
in the dusty corner
by the window of a forgotten attic,
stare sullenly at breathtaking marvels
of sunsets and starry nights
and you.
Language is not enough.
You deserve watercolour skies,
pale blue, tinged with the shifting greys of your stormy eyes
and violets of night, the faery gold-saffrons of sunsets:
only such pure magic is a worthy background;
not crooked phrases on notebook paper,
nor struck off lines,
nor the telltale haste of blotted ink.
Language is not enough.
Soft distant song that melts souls,
mends hearts, may bring you to life
in brief, timeless harmonies…
I wish I lived music
so I’d veil impassive keyboard clicks
with heartbreaking violins,
the wonder in wordless whispers of flutes.
Language is not enough.
Someday, you might fathom how
no faerytales, nor poetry
hold the miraculous ability
to live to tell of unearthly wonders
of heartbreaking joy,
of promises, forevers,
of you.
Someday, perhaps you’ll fathom why
language won’t ever be enough.
T. E. Pyrus