As we talk about broken hearts,
she manages a feat
no one else has:
to diagnose a reason
for my suffering.

She says
i am without guile.

The problem is my personality –
it intimidates.

She insists
i walk through the world
utterly without camouflage,
my need naked to all –
and that such openness
makes people run away.

Yet, it is also the wellspring
from which art comes.

She knows this
because she suffers
from the same intensity.
It might be why
we do the same work.
Definitely, it is why
she has surrendered
the search
for any love
but that of friendship.

All i know
right now,
for myself,
as her words wash over me,
is that i ooze loneliness.

i would give so much
to find comfort
in the arms of the one
i love –
God, how i mourn his absence –
particularly at this moment
when my purpose,
the meaning
that usually drives
my life,
has been letting me starve.

She sells her art.

A month ago,
that would have seemed
like a challenge,
an encouragement,
confirmation that it is possible,
a message
that i must find a way
to sell my own.

Only drenched in today’s exhaustion,
i cannot stir myself into hope.

Perhaps she is right,
and i am without guile.
For i cannot avoid or deny
my unguarded need
and excruciating grief,
they are etched on my face,
scrawled all over my work,
and shout out their existence
through every movement
of my limbs.

Even my usual habit
of prayer has halted,
for i lack the heart to ask
and receive silence
or condemnation.

If only my exhibitionism
of spirit and emotion
had some benefit –
but this nudity seems gratuitous.
It leaves me so very weary
that i cannot decide where to go –
and now,
i have even
run out of words
for this poem.

2014