A Validity

Stressed beyond belief,
my heart wanders in worlds
unseen by human eye,
not felt by human touch,
but altogether real.

Mountains are climbed
where dizzying heights
force vision beyond normal scope,
chancing accidents not plausible
but valid.

It is my guess that distance
is traversed on foot
through lands uncharted
and my footprints left on another heart.

How do I know this?
There are stretch marks on my heart
I cannot remember this life admitting.
There are headaches piercing a memory
nowhere given time.
There is heartburn a love
would not allow.
And there are dreams connecting
a time and space
as vivid as this reality we claim.

But all for naught?
I say not.

For when the heartburn
cannot be touched by any antacid
and headaches cease,
when memory is identified,
when life admits the stretch marks
and heart cannot allow another footprint
and when the new country becomes
a sweet focus,

we know the night is finished.