warped reflection swims like watery milk above the puddle

full of doubts that don't drip but pour down into its cacophonous depths.

a medley of sorrows curdle then swirl down the drain

and the red faced goddess of this rain continues to squeeze the clouds.

she sits not on a throne of pride and substance and joy

but falls gracelessly to the slab of the cold countertop below.

how terrible her thunder cries into the blank and lonely void

that no decent person can listen

and no indecent person can laugh.

what is this creature who calls so helplessly for times past

and looks for answers to unanswerable questions?

who wanders hopelessly in search of a paved path onwards

and stumbles along without a compass?

who gazes into a mirror without feeling of recognition

and drags its ugly head through a fog of fear?

 

it is me.

 

it is me that was born on the edge of a sunrise

and sprung up in green shoots and greener leaves

and found my voice in the bird song on the back porch

and grew legs to run here and there and back again

and made a home in the unending expanse of dirt

and pulled joy straight out of thin air.

it is me that greeted the trees as a child

and painted the sky with a brown swipe of ponytail

and danced beside the morning's grasshoppers

and lept over oceans of emerald carpet

and paced through my kingdom with a ball beneath me

and instantly fell in love.

it is me that wrote poems in knee scrapes and bruises

and spoke in footsteps woven through the grass

and learned in a classroom of ceaseless movement

and conquered the turf as a plane of my own

and ate only the sweet fruit of youthful bliss

and built a beautiful world out of myself.

 

at least it was me.

 

that evergreen child lived through the tide of many seasons

and blossomed in full color in the midst of her green expanse.

she grew agile wings that lifted her through the years

and swaddled her in the pure jubilation of breathlessness

and enveloped her in exhausted comfort.

a captain of the beautiful vessel that she had claimed as her own

and rode tirelessly amidst the viridescent waves.

a maestro conducting a concerto of raw conscious

that sounded a flawless melody of instinct and intuition and finesse.

she was unmatched.

she was unmarred.

she was unafraid.

 

so how did that sweet fruit rot?

 

it happened in the small space that rests in between seconds

but continues to echo its awful cry through distant infinities

and lodges itself in the grain that textures the present.

she danced among the silken blades of her kingdom

in a loving embrace of the leathered sphere below

that seesawed in a familiar lullaby between her feet

and graced the ground in strokes of euphoric freedom.

the alignment of earth and human that had held for so long

broke in one simple slip of her shoe.

deafening sorrow pours unrestrained from her lips as she falls

down to the territory she had once navigated

and she is no longer a cherub of youthful passion

but has transformed in that space, that hideous crack in time

into a pitiful animal shot down by a stray bullet.

 

she is me.

 

the crime of losing innocent love to the whims of the cruel universe

scars her as she can no longer make sense of anything

and she no longer hears the bird song or sees the grasshoppers

and she cannot dance because she cannot even walk.

her wounds fester as the kingdom she once ruled

perishes in flames of agony and she can only watch from her bed

as the fruits of her garden starve.

a face now reddened by the hardship of loss stares vacantly into the mirror

and it does not recognize the creature that gazes back.

what does one do when all they have ever done

and all they have ever wanted to do

turns its back and starts walking away

without ever saying goodbye?

how can one find solace

in the golden hue of numerous tomorrows

and hope in the sheen of endless opportunity

when there is no light with which to look for them?

 

i am still not entirely sure.

 

what i do know is that the hideous creature

of doubt and pain and sorrow lives on

but so does that cherub of my youth

and for now they coexist inside of me

as a pair of bickering sisters.

some days they fight and argue continuously

and some days they are quiet and leave me alone

and some days i succumb to irritation over their noise

and some days i can block it out completely.

regardless,

through darkness and sunshine

and wind and rain

they keep me company

as i continue to trek onwards

ceaselessly searching

for my lost vessel

for the land of my past

for my scorched kingdom

so that i can rebuild it again.

it will not be perfect

and it will not be discovered easily

but at least i can look forward

to finding it

to creating it

to falling in love all over again.