Long walk home

I’ve always walked between.

Carrying tales

between worlds, ears pinned back

at thought of being caged.

~

In September, we sat cross-legged

on carpets, her red hair like the innards of a seashell.

As we stacked stones, chasing leaves down school-yard slides,

we knew the way we played

was the same.

And then there was

a boy

who said, in pool class

that my hair

went under

like dark seaweed.

And a stranger on a train,

and a friend, who loved to try on vintage clothes

like a broke old-Hollywood actress.

This makes it sound like I love easily;

and I do, just like we all

love, when our hearts

know someone else

for what they are.

~

But somewhere, sometime, in between

the Autumn school and summer popsicles,

I became too good.

Too nice, unquestioning; losing the teeth that my mother gave me

for living abiding, and loving to please.

I learned that there was weight to place

on feeling like I did.

So once I finished lab,

I kept on sinking

papers into dye

on long walks home,

to hold a constant litmus test

convinced that they were right. (that somehow, I had lied).

Pricking little grids, to pin things to my skin

that still went unexplained;

So that the world could understand.

~

I’m better, now. Don't worry, mama.

I let the skin-grids wash with rain

and took in earth’s deep medicine,

for she’d always been

the one who knew me, like I knew myself.

And now, like a true cowboy

Or wolf, shielding her young

—er selves

I make my world

of seaweed, petals, bees and shells;

things that match my soul,

like changing leaves, and someone who loves

rolling in grass

and knows we’re music; writing, glass; things

that strives to capture

the uncapturable; smiling

as it slips away.

~

Funnily enough,

I’ve never been to a parade.

Probably

because

I live in the woods. :)

So when the music ends, on long walks home

I hope you know

that wild things know

you like they know themselves;

without rules, and whole.

I, for instance,

have come to see

my world in tides, and things

that go about

gleefully

defying

boundary.