scatterbrained

my fingernails are yellow from peeling clementines.

each time i approach the door of my building,

i notice the head of a red carnation

broken from its body,

neglected,

underfoot.

every time...

i may be acclimating to white noise,

but my mind longs for silence,

silence to fill with its own clamor.

forming letters is therapeutic.

forming words provides relief.

words that become solace for you

are my greatest successes.

Time is threatening me with its motion,

right now.

inescapable,

but not all powerful--thank God!--

it leads and follows,

pushes and drags me,

a leash and a weight at once.

but this gift--for that is what Time is--

this precious gift is a most valuable tool.

without it, i am lost.

without it, you may be too.

without Time, we could not be timeless.

our words would have no walls off which to echo.

like a blanket

weariness wraps me in its arms.

they are uncomfortable

and overbearing.

yet i belong here...

i have not done if i cannot be done.

i have no need for rest if i am never weary.

it provides a hope that constant respite could not bring.

focus--

see the letters are all cloudy.

though deep in thought,

i have naught to show,

not yet.

and even this

will slide beneath the cracks in the floor

and find its way into the shadowy recesses of history

never explored...

but it wants so earnestly to become something,

to develop a face,

and to be recognized by that face.

it can see, with one-sided eyes,

that no one is looking back,

not yet.

not yet, it chides.

my sleeves slide down my forearm

to remind me that they are too short

or my arms are too long.

my sweater's faded pattern takes me to my young self

on the carpet with her dolls...

the smell of the basement,

that lingering scent of books,

of learning...

(and i have separated myself from this moment...)

let me not live in memories, however dim or bright,

but in the light given me by hope,

that hope given me by faith,

that faith given me by love.

what Love!

what Love...

away,

i've come a long, long way...