Dark Register

If you leave,
he said,
keep who you are.

Don’t let the world
and its desires
ruin you.

But after the dream
came the habit.

And no way to fix it.

What is gone
cannot be put back.

Damage
from the inside.

What I have become
is warmed over

with that now
ancient dream.

What I was
is vanished.

I came back home
but I came back
gone.

Source: Poetry (May 2023)