Spine Tattoo

                                                                                   
                                                                To an inspiring friendship with you, F.
                                                                     

Nobody knows me.

For real,

 nobody walks in my shoes,

Nobody else - but you - 

remembers my shoeless walking 

in the forest, under the black moon

with the howling, silver-eyed  baby wolves.

Nobody really knows our self-convictions, 

battles we lost on our own,

wishes we burned away, in anger,

none of our whispering, late-night praying 

dying unheard.

Nobody is able to tell for certain

the rocking cradle of our oldest wound,

the most painful conclusion to this date,

the ugliest of all truths

learned the hard way, as always,

written in blood since our early childhood.

Nobody can see our well-hidden tears

defining our past together, 

re-shaping the rest of our days;
There's no wonder

Being so blind makes them all unable

to translate our chosen seclusions 

into deserved solitudes.

From where I stand,

each of us is simply a bird

whose broken wing, in an ivory tower,

though unable to soar high for a while,

will make a better bird 

with only a little time to rest and to ponder 

and a new scar, that wouldn’t allow 

taking flying for granted

or regretting the harm.