We’ve never seen what a happy life could look like if we chose to spend it by ourselves – sharing our beautiful lives with friends, family members, the occasional crush, and lounging out in that quiet space alone as if an idyllic sunned beach.
Hold me here, where I feel less like a stranger to my own laughter. Where it’s easier to believe things happen for a reason or maybe, at least, out of a thousand winding roads my life might take, I will still find one that fits me.
I want to wade into the water on the sidewalk, crawl out of this feeling without giving it a name. Take a lighter to love’s sticky edges so its sadness isn’t caught in my throat.
We’re in spring and I have learned how to be gentle and sharp; strong bark on budding trees. Hold out your hands. I’ll leave a pink kiss and a pocket knife.
How radiant you are, waiting by the window, watching for the sun to grant you more time to dance beneath it. You’ve let yourself dream again. Even if its in bites, even if it’s in a different voice than it used to be.
My love lives in my cheeks – gives me away by the first smile. all the lines from years spent laughing, warm with extra freckles in the summer; a poker face that doesn’t keep once my knees fold.
Take me back to the evergreen trees; to the sunlight through the leaves, the bending ferns and fronds. The pitter of the rain, the smooth rocks sleeping under moss. Take me back to the life I know before this body.
I sit on the bare floor, leave my palms unturned, and watch relief pool into one hand, and uncertainty in the next. I will try not to lean more one way or another, but let them hold each other as company.
There will be a time where this hurts less and it will not mean it didn’t matter. It means that in the face of feeling something precious slip in my hands, I will always find a way back to myself.
