Past

The things that I most fear in life
Are the things I’m less apt to understand.
The things that I know less about,
The things that I could never know.
Things you can hold in your hand,
But in my own would give me strife.
Things I could exist without
But in whose knowledge I tremble so.

The paradox so unpleasant
About which I quiver on recall,
Is how by knowing more of you
The more frightened I become.
I wish you had no past at all,
I wish you only had a present.
I wish I were your inception, too,
I wish I were your only sum.

Like some selfish leech, I adhere
To your current with such need.
I depend on your looking in front,
And so I hate what lies behind.
Albeit I see my own greed,
And how it waxes all in fear,
I forgo tact, and just say blunt:
“I wish your past weren’t so kind.”

When I go back home, far removed,
Though “home” is really just a word,
For I’m a tourist in my stead,
I don’t know how you’re going back.
You’re going home, so I’ve heard,
The meaning of it all disproved
By my own. For in my head
I envy all the things I lack.