I could not tell you the last time I wrote a poem.

Something flowing,

sweet,

garnished with beautiful words

intended to grab that piece of you that perhaps you forgot.

Something that tickles the back of your mind

like the name of a childhood friend

or the words of a song that you can't quite remember.

Perhaps the best things I've ever done were poems,

but how would one even measure best even if you wanted to?

The best is often illusive, nestled squarely between dream and reality.

That place you go to find hope when the sun starts to set.

I don't know why I stopped writing poems.

I guess I just forgot what they meant to me.

This emotional vulnerability

of truth and peace intertwined

as the words spill onto the page.

I feel your warm hands pull me in for an embrace.

I was not gone so long that you do not remember

the familiar wheeze of the engine inside my brain.

A bit smoky, perhaps, but coming to life.

A bit older.

A bit more tired looking on the outside.

Yet, you recognize me, remember me for who I was, and

so I will teach you of who I am;

tell you tales of the places I've seen and the people I've met.

And you will listen with the wide of eyes of a child

drinking in the words from my mouth, listening eagerly.

Poetry itself, an audience that I had forgotten.