Tag: poetry reading

Genre: Romance and Relationship

Lines
by Matt Griesinger

Lines keep us in order.
If we can keep ourselves between the yellow and the white,
pass when it’s dotted and stay patient when it’s solid,
we will arrive at the solemn promise
of shelter from disorder.
But that shelter is mythical.
Magical, sure. Practical, maybe. But all the while, hypocritical.
See, the shelter doesn’t exist.
The mythical, seemingly magical, possibly practical, definitely hypocritical shelter
is what new fathers, holding a bundle of six pounds, yearn for,
what cracked out junkies burn for,
what ivory tower academics press you to learn for,
and what once drunken sluts now bored housewives turned for.
The myth of safety in numbers, safety in lines
is pervasive and attractive.
It is invasive and reactive
In nature.
And I don’t mean nature in the form of the waves on the beach.
The waves that destroyed the dunes
and the wooden stairs leading to my house.
The stairs, dampened from perpetual high tides that never returned to low,
that led to a balcony.
In five years, the waves will destroy the stairs.
In ten years, the waves will destroy the balcony.
In twenty years, the waves will still carry the Memory.
The Memory lives on the incalculable shape on each individual wave.
The waves carry no lines, no safety, and no shelter.
They carry the memory of my beautiful blonde running down the stairs.
My beautiful blonde smiling up at me on the balcony.
My beautiful blonde bathed in innocence and swimming with grace.
She is the Memory.
As She walks on the sands,
the commands and demands
of a life in worship
strike repeatedly with the waves.
So when She changes hands, I feel the weight of the laying of the hands
as I realize that while I leave footprints in the sands of time,
She leaves footprints across my soul.
As I leave footprints for forlorn and shipwrecked brethren,
She becomes a veteran of my soul
as She lifts the oppression
and shows me pieces of heaven.
She lives without lines and provides
none for me.
Instead, She divides what I knew and collides two views
as She decides on a life outside the lines.
We will reside in the world of the Memory.
My beautiful blonde shining in the ocean.
Me, Her hero in the strife, at work building a life,
watching over Her and Her innocence,
Her poise and Her grace.
There are no lines. There is no order.
Only the living Memory.