No matter how often abundance

proves itself to be abundant

I still try to lock it away

with the good dishes

I have never used.

“Learning to love differently is hard…”   

—Marge Piercy, “To Have Without Holding”

 

My hands crack and creak

as these fists open, stiff fingers

reaching, trying to remember

how to touch, how to feel.

 

My heart cramps and catches

as I try unfurling it to reveal

everything it’s been writing, things

it thought nobody wanted to read.

 

My skin, pale and pasty, grabs

at the mask I try to peel

from the face finally curious

about sunshine again.

 

My lips, so accustomed

to reciting only certain phrases

struggle to release the wild words

gnawing through their cages.

 

Exhaustion attacks me;

I want so badly to crawl

back into that safe, tight space,

but my fingers keep reaching,

my heart keeps stretching,

my face craves daylight,

and my lips enjoy  the new

shapes they can make.

Alone on the snow,

devoured by darkness,

small, lonely, desperate,

begging the night for answers

—messages spelled by stars,

flashing signs pointing the way—

but there are no directions,

no cosmic billboards,

only this heart and this head

trying to find common ground,

and this body, cold, cold, cold.

Tangled by roots of trees

I forgot I planted,

snared with each step,

captured by my own hands,

too stunned to struggle.

Where you eventually find

yourself

while trying to outrun yourself

 

That dot on the map

between who you really are

and who you thought you were

 

The place you need to find

before you can

be found

As I headed South, the moon

peeked over the mountains

and winked through the clouds.

Music reached through the stereo

to put his fingers all over me

while the moon hoisted herself

higher until she danced, fat and full,

right in front of me, her orange glow

slipping through the cracks

in my heart, lighting the way for music

to find his way in too, their shining

and singing honoring the brokenness

that allowed them to enter.