I live my life through the words I write
I opened an old notebook
at random
from the stack beside my bed
on the bookshelf.
A notebook of poetry
from three years ago.
The page I turned to
contained words of
feelings
memories
metaphors
and people.
I offered to the page
a wistful smile
for just yesterday
I wrote about the same
feelings
memories
metaphors
and people.
And I thought to myself:
I need to let them go.
I have forgotten how to hold my pen –
index, middle and thumb?
index and thumb?
concave or convex?
thumb tucked in or overlapped?
I write a line, or a word,
then my fingers fumble and fidget,
switch to a different position
then switch again a few words later.
What was once a natural extension of my hand
now lives in the unfamiliar.
Half the process now, requires learning
how to enable the pen to rest
within my fingers and thumb
to scratch legible letters,
never mind focusing my mind enough
to connect thoughts into coherency
to write at all.
I have been away from the page
for so long
the practice, the rituals I once knew
and depended on,
are foreign.
Long ago
(or what seems like long ago)
I began this practice
fumbling and learning and
constantly switching my fingers around the pen
just like I am now.
This is a chance to begin again
to re-acquaint the pen with my hand
and begin walking along a new trail
of the forest.
Writing on weekends
words flowing from the stillness
my mind exploring.
I thought about you,
I wrote about you
as though we were characters in a story,
and now that the words are written and saved
I can let you go
a bit easier.
People come,
enter our lives,
often we don’t see them coming
until there they are, standing in front of us,
asking us to join in their lives, too.
People go,
often too soon,
before we have a chance to say goodbye.
In their shadows we remain
drowning in words unsaid,
yearning for a reunion of any kind
to lighten the load on our shoulders.
People come, and they go,
sometimes to make room for more new arrivals
for we can only have so many, right?
When they go, I wonder where they go.
Do they, too, carry words left unsaid
like me?
I have much to say
to contribute to the conversation,
to expose my experience,
to connect.
I can feel the words on my tongue,
in my throat,
poised to drip from my lips.
I cannot add my voice to them
before the topic changes,
before everyone else moves on
so they remain, poised and powerful.
They retreat back, away from my mouth,
down my throat
dropping into the stomach,
a series of small dead weights.
Contracting to comfort them,
my body crumbles in on itself
until I am nothing but a ball
of voiceless words.
Feeling my heart glow
this is where I feel happy
here, amongst these words.
Reading words
like they were written for me
and only me
or by me, with enough practice
comforts me,
reminds me
there are others like me
who feel what I feel.
I am not alone.
Try on different words
to describe the feelings you feel
like a shirt or pair of pants
in a department store.
Try a new color, or fabric,
something beyond your norm
and watch how you transform.
Keep me in silence
oh mind,
let words not build in my throat
and escape my lips.
Keep the picture show reeling
behind my eyes, though open,
where I can be the sole attendee
and watch the scenes play out
over and over again.
Keep me in silence
as long as you can
so I can escape
to anywhere.
Dawning Words 