walking towards a locked room,
on a windy friday morning
((the length of my skirt makes for some comfort & my back is freezing over with fragility.))
i am a gypsy made for wandering. not a student, not a person-who-is-destined. why, why, why am i here?
a heartbeat for hiding;
under the trees in the courtyard
devouring my first meal in twentyone hours,
eluding every person, every stare.
the scars of ink that trail across my hand,
the foreboding, the terror,
the deja vu of the scene.
the familiar way that panic
wraps itself around my muscles
& takes hold & makes me numb &
makes me black & green.
& there's something in the air. it isn't love or hate or bitterness. i'm on the tightrope. there is no net, no one to catch me, to save me, to whisper the little lies that keep me sane.
wallet-turned-empty
dreaming of a cup-of-something
to replace my chocolate bar.
i don't want
to face my fear
i don't want
to be with anyone tonight
i don't want
to cry out loud.
i want to see you?
i want you to make things okay.
but i don't need you,
i don't need you.
i'm not drowning, i'm not swimming. today i only floated. when i was younger floating was always terrifying, horrifying even. staring at the openess of the ceiling or the sky, sounds muffled by the liquid entering my ears, & my feet just wavering above the waterline. it's a kind of vulnerability, a stripped-down awareness, a pure sense of being. ((i always used to falter & touch the floor, leaving my trust right inside my head))
i love floating now; collective thoughts and dancing limbs, the possibilities in the sky, indecisive waves that pull & push, pull & push. if i wade out here for far too long... i need to start swimming for myself.
but the poignance of the situation; the freedom, the holiday-in-a-few-hours, the walking & the talking, & the adventure to level six & back to level four. a spooky friday-the-fifteenth; it makes me feel like a brilliant jewel in a brilliant crown. it makes my friday worth surviving. & i love you, maybe out of constancy or comfort, but probably because i can be a sapphire right next to you.
then the rush-around-town, though i'm tired & broken, for coffee & cake & all the things that i had wanted. easy conversation with men in cafes to say that this is the only place i know... but they know. so i am saved.
i'm itching, simply wanting to find my faults & fall & never forget. maybe for a few hours, i will only be me without regret or conviction or the tumult-of-the-head.
& after all, it's all i can be
at this hour, in the
light of a melody.