lifetimes (poem)

I came here to see people who struggled
who knew nothing but the burnt ends of a cigarette and the beat of rhythm. 
I can hear for the fragrance of earth, the smell of the sky on a rainy day, 
the errant whisper of a newly blossomed leaf and the beckoning of a light a hundred meters too far gone. 

I came here to feel the intensity, 
the power of weight, oppression, release, the erotic touch,
a crescendo on a violin and then the fall of nothing more than a beating whisper. 

I came here to lie on the wet grass and to stare at a sky overcast, the rhythmic pulsating of a heart too strong to care and to weak to know the future. 

I came here for now, an unknown, a beginning, and end, and everything, everything that lies to the left. 

I came here to live lifetimes.

// // written while lying on wet grass at 11:29pm, frankfurter allee, berlin