red cedar
We walk blindfolded through the streets of our own making,
tripping over promises we swore we’d keep,
handing our hearts like coins to strangers
who count them and spit them back.
I have known the taste of regret,
bitter as ashes on a tongue once sweet,
and the sting of loyalty returned in shards,
as if devotion were a toy
meant to break in our trembling hands.
Foolishness is a fire we carry,
thinking it warmth,
while it devours the bridges
we built with trembling hope.
We love too fast, trust too easily,
and believe in shadows that never asked for our faith.
The heart—oh, that traitorous organ—
beats, even when it knows the truth.
It loves again where it should not,
trusts again where it should fear,
and bleeds in silence
for the foolish choices of its owner.
We measure loyalty in footprints,
but footprints fade.
We swear to stand, to endure,
to guard another’s soul like a lantern
against the dark,
and yet the dark finds a way in—
slips through the cracks of our resolve,
turns fidelity into smoke.
And when betrayal comes,
it is a storm without mercy.
The wind howls with every “I trusted you,”
the lightning sears every “I believed,”
and the rain—cold, relentless—
washes away the illusion of forever.
Yet still we return,
still we hand over our hearts,
still we build and burn,
for in foolishness is the only fire
that keeps us human,
and in heartbreak is the only echo
that tells us we once dared to love.
So walk carefully,
but walk anyway.
Trust is a blade, loyalty a fragile shield,
and decisions—oh, the foolish decisions—
are the ink with which we write our lives,
even when the pages are torn
and the margins soaked with tears.
keen creek
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shrewd dust