uncollected
-
here, take my hand. don’t you
see me reaching for you?
there’s safety in numbers. i
will watch your back, share
your joys, dry your tears.
the uncertain dark is less
burdensome with a friend.
together, let us watch the
sun’s rise and fall, the fluid
shift of the moon’s face, the
inexorable spin of the stars.do not be afraid. you are
never alone. these words and
the fragile experience of human
vulnerability bind us
together across space and
time. we are alive, is that
not enough? here, take my
hand, and let us throw open the
door to welcome the new day. -
we share the smallest, simplest things.
a smile, a tear, a scar.
it seems our commonalities -
the we we truly are -
may feel inconsequential as
we live our nights and days,
when all our fights and fears and foes
consume our thoughts and ways.
but really, what are we at heart
but souls in fragilest skin?
who all, despite our differences,
alike still love and sin?
who feel both pain and wonder as
we watch the world unfold,
cry tears of joy, ache pangs of grief,
and grow from young to old?
for beauty in its rawest form
is human, pure and whole,
and we, though varied as the stars,
are one from soul to soul. -
we are not so different, you and i.
we both squint in sunlight. our
constellations may spin at
unfamiliar angles, but the same
moon shines down upon us.
we both have a perpetual
possibility hanging over us.we are starlight in scarred skin,
stretching across every existence.
we hold heaven in hesitant hearts.
we make conscious choices of love
and loss, ask the same questions,
see the same sky. though our wings
are wrinkled and our halos bent,
we are, all of us, angels. -
me. floating in waves of
hearsay. physicality ebbs
and flows, a slow sweep
of sanity. the lullaby’s
loop looms a daisy chain,
tethering my bare toes to
grounded foundation,
a rock of reality.
but when the bough will
break, when the cradle will
fall.imbalance. scales slide, tip
treacherously. not enough
somehow, that leadens limbs
into prisoned paralysis. in my
chest, choking. in my throat,
thawing. i claw a climb through
cracking concrete. i cannot. my hands
are too small. my wrists
are turning blue.gray. not black and white. not
wrong and right, but more.
opened options. choices of
cause and effect. i am gray,
hovering on the horizon of
want and need, of known and
unknown. bright burns, heat
stinging, singing relief, but
whispering broken promises. i
can count them. numbers do
not lie. they multiply,
stacked fenceposts lining
the edges of me.
