Let Us Go Then is a small collection about the weight of words, the ache of getting older, and the courage it takes to want nothing.
The title comes from Eliot’s Prufrock, but it became my own invitation – to question, to doubt, to say the quiet parts out loud.
I. The Weight of Intention
Are the words I write my own
if a pretty thought flies through me
and I give it voice?
Does it stay mine,
or does it belong now to the reader?
Is the intention clear?
Is it necessary?
If you read in my words
something unintended,
does it mean that I failed?
If it stirs you,
if it is still beautiful–
did I succeed?
If it comes to you on a clear day,
in a park, when the weather is just right,
and you finally think,
"Oh."
Will I have given enough?
Will I ever know
if I have done my best?
(Let us go then)
Will I ever know
if I have a best?
(You and I)
Will I ever accept if there is no best?
(As my sense of self strolls idly by)
II. The Weight of Response
If you read this–
Do you understand?
What was this day?
Why were these words burning inside me,
and what do they mean to you?
Do they mean the same to me?
If I ask,
will you sit
and think about the words?
If your own are added below,
are they mine,
are they ours,
do they belong to the world?
Find me,
tell me your story
And
Let us go then, you and I,
with the words
spread far and wide
And
Let them go then,
the meanings we've misread
and misremembered,
but still read
and still remembered.
III. The Weight of Hours
Let us go then, you and I
When morning is spread out against the sky
For evening is the domain of the young
And my body is tired, though my mind and spirit are strong
And desperate for adventure
Until the clock slips into the later hours
And my eyes slip closer and closer to sleep
I dream of the sunset,
but the sunrise is my companion now.
The times of late nights and late mornings
replaced with early days and early beds.
Who I was would not believe who I am.
Who I am would not want to be who I was.
To grow old is a gift,
to get time,
to learn and to change.
To grow older is hard,
to ache,
to creak,
to slow,
in all the ways that count.
I never thought I would be older.
The me who was
could never see a world
beyond the pain of then,
could never imagine
the different pain of now
and how these aches and pains
are proof of life and living.
So I stretch, and I breathe,
and I let the day begin.
IV. The Weight of an Ending
People don't like when I say I look forward to the quiet nothingness of death.
Not because I want to be gone,
but because I want to stop thinking.
I'm not scared of operating rooms.
Never have been.
I'm jealous.
Jealous that part of me gets to feel nothing–
just for a little while.
Some people dream of heaven.
I dream of silence thick enough to rest in.
Let me go then,
not you,
just I.
I don't want eternity.
I want nothing.
Reed Writes 
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