Hand Me Down Ideas

The road back to yourself

won’t take you there

if you have shifted locus.

I’ve been trying to find the path home

Searching for a page in a book

when the fingertips only know braille

and the words have worn smooth

and the eyes are blind.

When you are finally able to perceive again

you find

We have ideas about identities

that don’t always match

who we are in the present

yet habit keeps taking us past familiar haunts

is it any wonder we feel

haunted?

I sit in the sauna melting

and my new skin can’t catch up

to the outline of a person

that used to exist

Shifts

beneath the drift of so many thoughts

Words don’t really describe the discombulation

Yet my mind wants to hear my subconscious’s

new location

People that used to mean so much to me

seem distant

as if requiring some outdated version to reckon with

But she has vacated

left no forwarding address

and even if she did

I don’t think I would provide them with such

invalid information

You can talk to me? I think

a little wistfully

and of course it hurts

dreadfully

But lets be honest

we have nothing in common

maybe some trace DNA

Even that

I always felt adopted

And I can’t make myself

squish into your hand me downs anymore

Passed on to a child

who tried to fit in, knew the heirachy

where she was supposed to begin

and end

the ending was the most important part I believe

to them

Not to stray outside the parameters of kin

always to check

for a smile of approval

Turn it over wondering

is this love?

You thought you would teach me a lesson with your silence

Instead I found the lack of a fence

Enlightening

There is something about being beyond the pale

that feels lighter

So

you can have it all

Them

Spin your side

until it becomes three dimensional

perhaps

Most things don’t add up to three though

when they begin with one

and zero doesn’t add up to anything

but a light sort of nothingness

living in this pale skin

that tolerates

sunshine quite well

I’m finding

nevertheless

nothing is wanting

it’s all internal and mine feels like lightning

smells like rain on the wind

these things

are far more comforting

then the sound of phones

that never ring

*photo – mine (as they all are) tree with flood bands – around its trunk – Lake Nuga Nuga. Crisis leave their mark, it is up to us to turn it into art.

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