Tangential Empathy

You ask me, why I’m here,
But I ask you, why do you ask?
Don’t you remember:
The time we spent together,
Before we were born into a globe of unmet needs?
You know why I’m vertical,
In the central artery,
You worked hard to make sure I made it.

Unmet friends,
Unmet and never followed through.
Unwanted but sequential,
Each day builds chaos to the next,
Each acquaintance met and discarded,
Uncivil unrest.

If you ask me again I’ll be sure to show through,
Write a nice paragraph, type it up,
Printed, mailed, to you.

And if the core of our star
does highly unlikely things, too soon-
(Too late)
I’ll only dream of who you wanted to be,
Who you tried and managed only to meet the bare seams,
Those efforts aching,
Those grunts made, making,
There was no pleasure from that pain,
Was there?
You don’t need to answer,
I remember.
I’ll only wish I could see the time
That thoroughly sped away from me.

That’s all I asked of you,
Some empathy, some guilt felt,
Shame relieved,
Shame re-lived.

Feel with me,
I want to share with someone,
Sunlight touches me in the day,
And even by night,
Red bricks carry the pain
From our blistering sky.
Wandering, we travel as if by treadmill,
Don’t you agree?
Why don’t you agree?

A tangent again, how I’ve loved you so,
You ask so little of me,
Even with the proper punctuation,
I’m wandering far down this road,
No signage,
No sins.
But no empathy either.