Wouldn’t it be easier

Wouldn’t it be easier
if all the sins were buried too;
turned to ashes like the flesh
that brought to life the quiet crude
which should have stayed a fantasy,
and even then examined hard;
for all the living in that moment,
the life of love that you discard.

Wouldn’t it be easier
if all my family showed me ‘how’
instead of all how not to be,
as if I could simply not allow
the drink, the smoke, the wondering eye
to rise in me like the meeting of storms,
not lessons learned or lines in sand,
my soul holds on to prior forms.

Wouldn’t it be easier
to treat you as an effigy
and not a victim of an ancient thread
that binds us not with empathy
but mutual disappointment
for what we could not overcome;
an unattended funeral awaits for those
who falter and succumb.