A Light to Guide Her

by C.B. Jerman

Why does she plague me so?

That insufferable feeling that perches

upon my heart and clutches at my soul

ne'er does it give way to easy feeling.

That heart I've felt has never let, but pain

for now I know that she exists

yet I know her heart cannot be mine.

Just beyond my clutches she strides in color:

that brilliant hue that lightens

the gray dull granite of my soul.

So young and soft and full of life

a life that I shall never share

a love that I shall never feel

a heart that I shall never touch

a mind that I shall never know.

She moves not with grace but she has

a powerful vitality--filled with the

full and fiery feeling of life.

A heart beating eagerly,

forever beyond even the dusk of the grave.

Yet not mere oceans stand between me and

this solemn beauty--full of regret and sorrow

for things done past and things now present.

Our lives turn only clockwise:

forever forgetting the seconds past

and never pausing to let us catch our breath.

Gasping into the night, into the future

I know she wanders blindly too

through the maze of life with no clear path.

The only truth that all are blind

but despite this blindness that we all share

some of us can serve as lanterns for others' souls.

My purest wish is to be a light to guide her

along that abyssal maze of uncertainty.

Blackened by experience, yet still unknown.

So young and yet so much knowledge;

So much knowledge and yet so little understanding.

I feel that the fates are cruel in their

pursuit of my knowing.

They laugh at the sight of my struggle

and scoff at my simplest desires.

These desires are so simple, yet so hard

to achieve in the short century of our lives--

a century that passes in the blink of an eye;

an eye that blinks all too quickly.

One moment we're young and then all is lost.

Lost to the mighty fury of our universe.

A universe outside of time yet time-encompassing.

Full of hope and sadness and empty despair

I want but one simple feeling, a mutual feeling

of shared belonging.

I want her to be mine, and I to be hers.

Until we find it, we have always failed.

Such a simple desire yet such a complex undertaking.

Moving through time,

the waves of light wash over me

as I wander alone

along the simple path of my meanderings.