From this high perch of bone and years,
I watch the valley of might-have-beens,
where every risk was a river, wild with light,
and I, a stone upon its sun-bleached shore.
There was a ship whose sails were stitched from dawn;
I polished the spyglass, but never cut the rope.
Her laughter, a dialect I almost learned,
a language spoken on a coast I never reached.
Fear was the careful tailor of my days,
who hemmed the horizon to a manageable size.
Now my heart is the scaffolding of a mansion
whose blueprints yellow in the vacant air.
My soul, a key for a lock long turned to rust.
And this quiet breath, the currency I saved,
buys only this—the view of everything I wasn't.
