I arrived to you as a harbor battered by its own waves,
salt‑scored, muttering to gulls that never answered.
In your quiet courtyard my storms fell silent—
we planted lemons in the clay and their small roots
took hold the way forgiveness does: unseen, unhurried.

I walked the corridors of myself, lantern lifted,
so the dark could witness me no different
than the noon‑bright street.
Each shadow I carried bent to its knees,
learning the discipline of light.
I saw the old currents of impulse go quiet,
not hushed by force but eased by vigilance.

I traced the geometry of hearts:
how delicately they tilt toward ruin.
Still I braced their trembling arches
with words braided from breath and vow,
hoisting strangers’ mornings on my shoulders
though their replies fell cold and unyielding.

A silence grew intelligent between us—
naming absences, polishing regret—
the error named is already softer.
I studied its chipped syllables like a scholar
rubbing dust from a shard of amphora,
footnoting apology upon each fracture
forging now a lexicon of healing.

I stood naked before my own pulse,
counting each weakness the way a diver
counts breaths before the plunge:
one for fear, one for pride,
another for the hot coal of a hasty tongue.

The Sea Was Instruction

To stand naked before one's own pulse and count each weakness is the diver's discipline.

Yet I did not turn away; the sea was instruction,
its pressure a promise to surface true.

And I loved—God, I loved—
with a rope that had no knots for pulling away.
I gave breadth, I gave shelter,
but would not barter the marrow of my tenderness
for hands careless with its fragility.
When neglect arrived dressed as devotion,
I slipped my name from that weave of thorns.

The horizon blistered, then brightened—
metal sundered into light.
I gathered yesterday’s shards,
turned them until they glittered,
and stitched them into the lining of the coat I would wear to leave.

So here is my leaving:
not a retreating tide, but a river
reaching its mouth—salty, yes,
yet opening to a vaster blue.
I walk, cedar‑scented, luminous with bruise,
my pockets filled with unspent dawns.
I call this heartbreak, and I call it victory,
for I am the man who learned
to guard the world from his own storms,
to stand readable as daylight,
to lift, to care, to cradle, to mend,
to declare his cracked places,
to sprint toward the roar in the dark,
to sharpen his wondering mind,
and to love without chains—
while never again accepting iron
masquerading as a kiss.

I keep the lemons thriving.
Their blossoms remind the night air
that bitterness, too, can flower.

-- Jeffrey Phillips Freeman