Royale with Cheese

"Can't you just feel the zen?" 
he asked as the path curtains
roses that line the bed of a stream that
apparently only I can see.
He wears a smile, the kind
that one sports when confident that 
a joke is well received by the audience;
the kind of joke you wouldn't make
in front of the people it's meant to 
offend.
Like me.  
But he doesn't know
that I am his target.  
He doesn't know that his abhorrent insistence
that we all fall in line with his 
party style prayer
is abhorrent to me
and my love of the Truth.
How could he?  The man who lives 
for the moment when he can interject 
himself
into every conversation he cares
to interrupt. 

We have arrived.  He in his element, 
and I in mine.
The labyrinth before us.  
His mind races the annals of sarcasm,
while mine attempts a fullstop.
I cross myself and begin.
Twists and turns bring
peace and release.
Before long I am lost to all 
except trust.
And before long I arrive
at the center, 
to take my place in the
Celestial Rose.  

He moves on, while I stay.  
He cringes at reverence
in a place where his distaste tastes defeat.  
What a pain it must be, 
to find that his taste isn't king;
to find opinion o'rlooked
as insignificance.
Despite his attempts, 
I am free from his preference,
and all he has left is to sit in the corner and 
debate with his tonic,
desperate to prove that his 
rice paper spirituality
is anything more than a
Royale with Cheese.