I could not be solid
being hard in thinking instead
far in seeing past
the stories I was told
were the way things were,
and holding this truth
felt dangerous at times.
I could not be solid,
yet more an amorphous
shape shifting with every
change in the wind
like a ghost I thought at first
like the chaos before the fiery
center of a new star that
is warm whether the sun shines
somewhere near or is one day gone,
I realized eventually.
But, it’s just truth, and I really
have wanted to hide in my room
many times or to walk into a forest
and be gone awhile, and instead
of getting angry, I tried wrapping
myself in petals and song
like Billy or Leonard sinking into
my heart and forming or
opened the window and let the wind
gather in my mouth until
I could laugh
and maybe it was good to learn this/
where what is real and natural and beautiful
is dangerous to people too damaged
and still in hiding, maybe
for the rest of their lives because
they are still afraid-
and children who cannot tell
because they must protect others first
to survive, feel it like a scream
they wouldn’t dare and
the feelings in that hypocrisy-
when you should cry
if it is time and rage if it is
required
because to not, makes
better understandable why
someone cannot love.
But, children learn to live
with a feeling they cannot speak
the name of except, I am sad
or crawling into bed one night terrified
of dying when the house is
so quiet and so safe,
it will take work to learn to speak;
and yes, I am serious inside
and thoughtful or maybe
I became this way and was someone
before, but I only know what I was
by what I survived then like
a starfish only looks up
from the ocean floor.
And now, I sometimes need to
stand in the cold somewhere vast
and empty or sit in the sun
as it almost burns midsummer
wanting to stay just there
looking and feeling for something
like a clock knows it was made
to tell the time and will
suddenly stop moving/ hands
pointing at whatever, maybe
it is one in the morning when no one
is looking and thinking, ‘that
is a clock’- how it notices
in this moment the shape of the moon
in its own inspiration and says,
I am not ‘a clock/’
becomes what can be believed
somehow and with little guidance
except stories and what we have
known of love and the songs we hear-
people like stars orbit an unseen force
and call the name and
tell the story of each
named thing like
this is my heart in
every name given.
