"Non-Thoughts and Broken Highways" 1974: poetry by Michael F. Nyiri

As I sit here I will hold back tears and tell myself
that I'm not crying
My mind and heart are apt to burst any moment
and splatter my feelings about me.
But I won't let them.
I keep telling myself I'm not that kind of person.

Watching myself I find I'm more at a loss to the 
truth than when I tell people I can be totally
honest and then lecture about it.

Today I found out the truth about myself
I found I cannot be honest about anything
when I cannot even be sure of my own
future.

At a supposedly happy time I find the zipper
on the bottom of the bag opened wide and
my fears running around like hyperventilated
lemmings.

I find that I reach out much too often
Then find myself hurt when there's nothing
to hang on to.

I stopped writing those last love poems.
I stopped my inconsistencies.
I believed I had stopped that with Emma.

Then I tried too hard
Then I didn't try very much
And now what.
Am I even gong to try at all?

When all our childhood sweethearts are married
And we are forced to wander aimlessly
in a part-empty house
waiting for a door to open.

I look back, then look ahead and pray.
I have tried to find God.
And I have had Him pushed on me
I have tried to find love
But I don't know what it means.

I have tried to write the last poem
that serves to close the door on life's book
But more chapters keep knocking.
And I try to convey my feelings
But I myself do not even know what they are
Maybe tomorrow I will find an answer
Maybe the day after or the next.
Maybe
And now I fell like crying.
	As the tears don't come
		I find I'm cheating myself again.