ISOLATIONIST - Full Digital Copy

ISOLATIONIST

Poems by Cody Wagner

DEDICATED TO

Richard “Richie” Wagner, 

Brian Guile, 

and Ryan Newcomb;

Those that encouraged me to chase my dreams 

but are no longer here.

And to those still here, cheering me on

Thank you, dearly. 

You inspire me to keep chasing.

"All Eyes Pierce" 

All eyes pierce me with their indifference.

I once viewed crowds as a sickness 

to steer clear of to avoid infection.

Their affection falsified, 

Only as a guise to mask their discontent 

and the bile spewing from putrid mouths,

To avoid the biting down of venomous fangs.

I made it a point to section myself off, 

To not be bothered, 

To avoid the hurt of their dagger-filled glances.

But their second chances have ran out after one too many times. 

Now they look to me no longer.

They themselves can't bother with the idea of me.

Me, just out in the open.

Me, pushed to the side.

Just me. 

Alone. 

Forgotten. 

“Overstay” 

I do not wish to overstay my welcome here. 

I hope to never stay longer than necessary,

Nor should I be the last foot out of the door. 

I stay precisely as long as I’m needed.

After that, I’d just like to be gone. 

I want it to be over sometimes. 

To fit right inside a cage of routine,

Caught in an ever-looping maze of time.

Obligation, never ceasing to an end. 

It all must end sometime, somehow. 

For once it’s a gift to not be on someone else’s clock,

To wait for them, at their convenience, on their watch. 

What a liberty it is to possess your own time.

To decide when you’re getting too boring,

Or witnessing everyone getting sick of you. 

No more of that.

I’d like to leave now. 

I know I’ve overstayed my welcome.

“Such Fragile Things” 

Delicate things as thin as 

Threads are seen as fragile.

So easy to do, they break

As if it never held any worth.

Fragile things prove us all wrong. 

So important are these that must

Be held with such diligence and care,

Lest the shards of the broken form cuts

That bleed only once in a while.

When it’s least expected, 

Just when you thought the wound had healed itself,

Does the hurt pour once more as easily as tears.

There’s such beauty in such fragile things.

“Ghost By the Garden Gate” 

I saw a cardinal perching upon the garden gate.

A red one, flying freely. 

This bird, I could’ve sworn I saw a reflection

of your eyes in the two voids of the red spirit. 

I looked for a second time, and the reflection was gone. 

You were neither here, nor there.

Sometimes I look to waving winds for wiser words.

Sometimes I look to ghosts 

-- As if they had answers 

Thought I lost you, lost myself

In the lost lands, in time, and losing life

over what was has been gone for a long time now. 

What was lost was neither here, nor there,

But somewhere in between 

Since then, I’ve found:

Our time is far long gone.

Our space has always been here.

You’ve taken an afterlife elsewhere. 

I look to find you, to find your spirit anywhere. 

I cannot.

For you are everywhere. 

“Silent Space” 

Ghosts are the silent space between us. 

Dead silence.

Dead air. 

Dead things occupying the space we left behind.

There’s no need for silence to snuff us out. 

There’s no need to be distant

I have ghosts too. 

They haunt the residence where they died 

And have not been laid to rest. 

That decaying space fills this void now. 

I hear whispers echo through 

The dead air like a crowd forming 

I have ghosts, too. 

Just as you do. 

They haven’t spoken our names in a long time. 

Not to me, nor to you. 

They only speak amongst themselves.
That ceased when the conversation died.

But they are still there,

Taking shape

In the silent space.

“Take Claim to Your Spirit”

The dirt claimed your body,

The audience takes claim to your spirit

And we'll carry that spirit forever.

To cherish, to carry,

Down deep within our hearts.

May your spirit claim center stage,

The audience is waiting.

• May you never be forgotten.

“The Cost”

Those jagged rocks came at a cost. 

Chained, weighed you down with 

a vengeful grip until loosened from exhaust.

And so you drowned.

The only direction left was straight down.

Bubbles rising from underneath 

heavy tides sealing a watery grave.

Grudges heavy as lifting stones,

And burning cold like hellfrost.

Those rocks carried 

on your back came at a cost.

“The Ocean Takes”

I cannot wait until the ocean takes me away.

I want to feel weightless. 

I want to drift away, taken home to the salt foam,

To be carried since I cannot carry myself anymore.

Since the start, I've carried a weight that would 

break the soul, breaks sinews, and break tired ankles. 

Carrying secrets that would break a thousand hearts.

Like the waves over immovable stones and shores.

Chasms of whispers letting out fragile bubbles 

of messages left to linger from air pockets. 

They said, "We break these stones eventually.

Waves crash, after wave, after wave, 

Until it chips away as sand.”

Spitting out the sand onto the shore.

“Would you like to become sand on the shore? 

Or taken down further, and turn into the sea?” 

The salt water is gentle the further down you sink.

About as gentle as calloused hands, fingertips,

of the ones I’ve held, or long to hold, so dear.

They were gentle and smooth once.

Like the rocks before the tides too, broke them down.

As the water becomes more quiet and dark, 

This change of tide wanted to rise again,

I wanted to be at the shore, to be surface-level. 

I had a sudden change of heart.

But it’s too late now, I am becoming the sea.

There are shores to crash upon.

There are stones I must break. 

There are people who want to feel weightless. 

I will take the weight of the stones they carry,

And I will hushen their secrets into my waters forever. 

“Certainty” 

I thought this world was certain. 

I found this isn’t the truth

This space we occupy will expand,

It will birth life across an ocean of stars.

It will blanket us in a warm embrace 

as we live within that space.

Then this space will die as quickly as it came to be. 

This world isn’t certain.

What is is that this world will 

shelter us for as long as we, ourselves, are certain.

There’ll always be that warm blanket

As long as we are here. 

We’ll never see the end of this world, 

But all of our ends will be seen by this vast Outward.

Until we join the ocean of stars again.

That is a beautiful certainty. 

“The Crowning Cloud”  

I close my eyes

To focus on this painting in my mind

For if I lose concentration 

This portrait with this ethereal glow will be lost.

I want to keep it with me forever.

Not in a pocket, not a lockbox, 

Nor my heart,

But above in a cloud crowning me.

So that when the rain falls 

the drops won't feel cold

and shatter the last remaining

impression of you.

“The Fading Visage” 

I looked out the window and saw your lips moving.

No noise flowed from the moving jaw.

You looked troubled, begging for help in a herd,

Through a crowd that wasn’t there. 

The sound of falling rain masked your cries. 

I, the one standing outside in perimeter, had heard it well. 

The trickling droplets were taking away your words.

The desperation took your breath away.

The incoming mist sat itself on the ground 

Like a cloud gone astray from the sky. 

I placed a shaking hand on the window.

The condensation formed around the heat of my palm. 

I couldn’t see you anymore. 

As the moment came to pass, 

I looked back to the fog and saw that you were gone. 

No one even noticed,

It seemed not even you knew that you were missing. 

My breath hesitated to leave my mouth.

It was all still. 

I waited for this too, to pass. 

For a moment, the threads of reality unraveled themselves.

Ghosts formed out in the vast emptiness beyond what could be seen. 

I looked for you, but you were nowhere to be found. 

I want to hear what your voice was trying to say to me. 

It was all so vivid, like a memory I vaguely recall. 

A frame out of time appearing before me. 

A picture that I found down in the muck of a marsh. 

Your eyes had said it all. 

It was the mist that took you away. 

It wanted you once, but you ran away.

It took back what it believed what it was owed. 

And I was its witness to the recollection. 

I felt a hand press on the other side of the glass. 

I believed it was you, I knew it was you. 

Teeth chattered, eyes widened. 

Yes, you were there -- beyond the grasp of the mist. 

Eyes locked upon eyes. 

Hand laid in hand -- finger to finger. 

I wanted to say something, but I couldn’t say anything. 

The rain took my voice away.

I raged against this silencing.

I spoke with an exiting breath:

Can you hear it? My voice.

Can you see it? My fading visage.

Can you feel them? My fingers tremble.

I took a deep breath.

I spoke again, as a confessional:

My ears could be shelter for your secrets. 

My arms would be a hearse, 

Only if you tell me where I may find you. 

I would wait forever if it meant you’d come back to me.

From the thick, pale haze I saw another hand. 

An ethereal body making connection

With eyes not panicking anymore, 

But beckoning for me to listen, observe. 

The hand pointed back deeper into the mist.

I walked outside as the rain fell upon me.

I followed as I too disappeared in the silencing rain.  

“Recluse”

When I was younger, 

I would scream how 

I wanted to be alone,

Away from everyone with a hand to lend.

To reach out, To say a kind word,

To kill some time, to be a friend,

All because I didn’t believe 

I was worthy of the love given.

Now I see everyone 

getting farther away.

I extend my hand 

With no one else grabbing for it. 

It’s my fault, 

My isolation built walls,

Throwing bricks onto a pile 

While my eyes were shut. 

I opened my eyes eventually

And the only thing I saw, 

Was how sorry I was;

How permanent my mistakes stained.

Now, unlike those walls,

I had to claw against with broken fingers,

I will have to rebuild

These connections once again, tenfold.

"From The Corner” 

In this corner, 

You thought you were a dying animal going out alone 

Dying alone so that you may go in peace

But you just had to lick your wounds

Get back up.

Today will prevail with you intact. 

Come out from the corner, 

And let everyone see the light shine upon you.

“From Its Clover” 

Wonderous thing,

I feel it all a thousand times over.

Life and love, 

Luck plucked from its clover.

Peculiar starfall,

Shine against the dark backdrop.

New life and what’s left behind, 

All cut from the same cloth.

Take it all, 

All part of shifting tides.

Oh, this I swear, 

I embrace it all - for it is mine.

“Lighthouse”

I will brave the storm. 

I will drag myself through rapid rains.

I will endure all that may weather me. 

I will watch the clouds shower upon barren plains. 

Until the blackened sea of clouds dissipate. 

Until the shadows burn away. 

Until the ambered land bears fruit. 

Until I outlast the punishing days.

I must become a lighthouse to others.

Signaling that steady land is not far off. 

I will become a beckon of light,

For those shrouded in the dark. 

If they should struggle in rapid waters,

I will drag them back to the shoreline. 

If they should lose their way,

I must remind them where they came from.

It was you, my friends, 

You showed me the ways of light.

That suffering is not all that there is. 

That I don’t have to drown in the night.

I will be there, my friends. 

Your toilage will not be in vain. 

I will forever wait out in the dark

Until everyone comes back again. 

So until I outlast these endless days.

Until this ambered land bears fruit. 

Until the shadows hide away. 

Until the clouds dissipate. 

I will watch the clouds shower upon barren plains.

I will endure all that may weather me. 

I will drag myself through rapid rains.

I will brave the storm.