Lost and Found

This again,

Sitting in my room night after night.

I like to close my eyes and imagine another person

Someone to talk to me once the lights go out and the universe expands outside my window.

Someone in here. In the stillness. With me.

Someone in my chest

Inside my ribs

Holding me from the inside.

You know that’s how I am with love

I want you inside me. I want you with me. Closer.

It’s about all I damn think about

ever since I was 11.

I’ve prayed for freedom. Blown out the candles.

Picked dandelions and closed my eyes and wished to no longer wish for another.

Still it’s always felt like there’s a missing piece.

A little glass shard lost in the great impact of puberty.

I spent my nights wandering the streets looking

at the bottom of draft beer glasses and behind the tiny buttons

of the shirts of the boys who wanted to understand me.

Why I always wanted to be somewhere else.

Then I got tired.

Older.

And I sit in my tower looking out the window for the horse bound man.

I always wanted long hair.

Always.

Answer me this?

What does it take to peacefully spend a night in my room?

In my bed?

Without feeling this great vacancy?

Where’s the part of myself that knows I’m complete?
How can I convince my heart that I’m safe even outside of your arms?

Or will it never come to that?

Will I always find someone happy to fill my glass when I’m having a hard time with the silver lining?

Perhaps I’ll meet the man that holds my heavy love

Perhaps he’ll stay with me even when I cry at night and feel alone even though he’s right next to me

Perhaps I’ll wake up in 20 years and wonder why I stopped searching.

And just became comfortable with the feeling of incompleteness.

And he’ll look at me and say – “I’m tired”.

And I’ll say, “I know”

“I know, baby.”

Or maybe I’ll go to Goa. And I’ll live on a tent on the beach.

Hot hot days and cold cold nights.

Sand and dirt under my fingernails and in my hair.

Maybe I’ll swim deep into the ocean

With the coral and the algae

And I’ll go as deep as I can until the water is like ice.

I’ll swim to where I’m most afraid

And then I’ll swim back up and crawl onto the sand like a newborn.

Maybe I’ll take off all my protection.

Peel it back layer by layer.

Everything I know.

Everything I’ve built to protect myself.

The whole damn structure – I’ll tear it down.

And face the cold. The heat. The world.

Maybe I’ll find my missing shard in a café con leche in La Coruna, Spain.

I’ll smile into the porcelain cup and wonder why I hadn’t looked here in the first place.

Lessons

When I'm alone
all the losses pile up and sit on my chest heavy and cold.
When I'm lonely all the grief I pushed down,
all the loves lost mid coitus,
all of it circles and pervades me -
pummels me leaving no part untouched.

So long,
So much of my life spent cowering
at the first sign of grief - of discomfort
He slapped me in the face and
I poured whisky into my belly.
He left and I slept for weeks.
He replaced me and I replaced him.

No harm - No foul - No growth - No gain

I think about the natural ebb and flow of life.
The spider bites and we limp for a day.
We cross a snake
and escape a little more savvy.
But what about the little girl who never took her lessons?
What about the little
soma suckling self deserter
that never hung in?

I guess the answer is in the question, then.
It all piles up -
heavy like thousands of wet drops collected -
weighing down - and bowing the fragile framework.
All my collected lessons.
In my bed tonight my heart breaks for all of them.
All the moon shaped faces and all the almond eyes.
All the love all lost at once,
like when the anesthetic wears off and you feel the sting
but its subtler - like an echo.

Here they are,
echos of heartbreaks never felt,
lessons never learned.
I wont run away.
I'm strong now.
I can hold the weight.

Tomorrow I wake up wise.