Turning back

I'm heading back, I'm turning back fast
People ask me every day
All this fear and apprehension
Stay within me, please, I pray.

I'm not scared of all the free time,
Or feeling lost, I have a plan
I'm afraid of seeing one face
Mirage of distant eternal man.

My sailor went to sea midst fighting
Never came back to see the peace
Took my heart, my pain, my envy,
Then returned a ghost of bliss.

Haunting in the place we traveled
I can't bear to know he's gone
When I return to life's old quiet
everyone else will have moved on.

I tell myself that I moved on too
These 18 months have changed my heart
But in the rare, quiet minutes
The fire burns, the tears will start.

In this dry and dirty country
Far shielded from friends and ghosts
Rivers changed to desert trickle
Lightning changed to coals at most.

It's easy to lose and leave myself
I feel joy undimmed by tears
But I'm heading back, I'm turning back fast
Back to struggles of past years.

When I get there what will life be,
Can I keep my heart intact?
Can I give it to another,
And face my fear of going back.

5.16.16