Dan Williams

Always Never

Nothing can remedy loneliness once beloved is gone.

Nothing can soothe the burns of frustration;

longing for a thing that can never be restored,

or verified as ever having existed at all.

Here are the sacred words of never and always,

the absolutes in their only valid usage;

not tossed casually in with mundane things.

Not wielded so carelessly by many weak thinking humans.

No, these are sacraments of eternity;

never knowing happiness and never knowing why,

instead always, always wondering.

No descent into any inferno will relieve him with substitute punishments;

not ever.

No failure, however spectacular, can again be used to club him numb;

not ever.

Only infinity will ever again embrace him.

None of this will stop him

from praying to gods he does not believe in

for an insanity that will not be granted;

he will remain on edge at the abyss, abandoned even by gravity,

unable to fall in.

Even death might not clear from this poor soul the memories

of the few who loved him despite his many failures,

fewer still whoever understood him,

nor prove release from one single thing.

He will revisit Distress and Dismay at home;

even there no hero will save him.

No omnipotence will forgive him,

no time will heal him; not ever.