Steel

“The sky is made of steel”
He throws in my direction
Across the endless cosnole
A gaze turned blank
Eyes playing on the horizon
He is not with me then
Only a shade of him
A shadow falling into, onto and down over the passengers seat of a 93 camry
No anger in his voice
Nor fear in his observation
Only the bleak exhaustion of mid-semester

“A wonder,” I reply
Wishing
Somehow
Maybe I could be so cold
Maybe, I myself, could turn to steel
Austere and removed
That my blood
Frozen in its place
Might multiply in density
And congeal into unbreakable links of an endless chain
And to that chain
I’d affix my past
Strangle my memories
Set them adrift
Watching them sink to the bottom of a well I so often wish was deeper

But my blood burns hot
It boils between the walls of a heart all too healthy
It simmers the memories
Reviving them in the endless bubbling of evaporation and condensation
It is anything but quiet
Anything but steel
And yet there exists a fear
Fear of a weakness
No knowledge yet
Only fear
And doubt
And perhaps most destructive of all:
Doubt,
Doubt comes in great quantities

“You know, you’re right.”
For it will never be i who am of steel
No, too real for that
Too much mess and confusion
Too many unrighted...
Unrighted markings I have left
I chose this, I chose this
But the sky

Always made of steel
Unbreakable
Unblemishable
But reflecting only what the earth shows it
And maybe I can hope
Perhaps I must hope
In this waiting
That from such a distance
She sees truer