Please, forgive me, I have nothing to say –
Silence has become my permanent state;
I am absent from this feast in my name;
It’s been months since I have last seen my face;
/
I’ve been living in the desert too long,
Looking into things which I used to fear;
And you know, they have been looking at me,
And it scares me that they liked what they saw;
/
Please, forgive me for the cold of my hands –
It’s been years since they have felt human warmth;
Dry skin, tempered by black rocks and white storms,
Is the skin, I think, I never will shed;
/
Please, forgive the taste of salt on my lips,
The glow in my eyes when, on a sleepless night
I will look into the oceans inside
Which I dived in, and which dived into me;
/
Please, forgive me that I’m gone all the time
And that I can’t tell the stories I bring
In my chest; like dreams, I trap them within –
If I let them fly, I’ll turn into dust
Perhaps the speaker is asking the self for forgiveness for nurturing everything but the self?
Thank you for commenting, Carl! It always amazes me how you interpret my writing exactly the way I intend it! I also think that the Explorer is talking to himself/herself as he/she has no home to return to and no one to ask forgiveness from.
I read it as more of soliloquy…perhaps because in my lifetime I’ve had those conversations…wonderfully crafted.
Thank you! I’m glad you found your own way of relating to the poem. I used to try having ‘those conversations’ with people, too, but most of the time I would feel the words getting stuck in my chest: big and palpable, they were living memories rather than words; their impact would render me speechless.