life is like a

 
Sometimes I feel like a child
Like life is a bundle of flowers 
I’ve got clenched in my fist 
In a death grip 

I’m so scared to let
A single one of them go
That I clutch them tight enough
To squeeze the life out of them

Sometimes I feel like a child again
Not sure what I did wrong 
No idea how to hold things loosely
Never told how to let them go

Only told not to hurt them
Only telling them I was 
Only trying to keep them safe 

do i?

I come back to my

Childhood home

And sit on a new bed

I still don't fold my

Laundry for five days

And wear my old Duke shirt instead

Last week I went for

A walk and it was

Like going back in time

Coming back to 

This place

So familiar

And changed

They cut down Mom's

Dogwood last week

Without even asking

Last night it was stormy

When the farmer in the tractor

Was mowing the field

I tried to walk

Fast enough to miss him 

At the corner

And I didn't wave

But I still walk 

Barefoot over the ruins of a

Once paved gravel road

I still look at the

Sky unflinchingly

When I can

Pad down the dirt paths

I still strain to keep the curtains

And windows open and let all the

Light in that will come

I still worry too much 

About my younger brothers 

And what a year will bring

I still bask in the sun and

The velvet blanketed dusk and 

My husband snoring on my arm

I still laugh too loud and ride

Bikes occasionally and make breakfast and

Floss when I think about it

And I know 

I'm ignoring the question 

Again

But it's just that

There's too much to unravel

Tangled up in the trees and the pine needles and the cicadas scratchy legs

Lately I answer you in a different

Tongue and it comes out wrong

Do you understand me?

Do I?

what i don't say

What I say:

I love you

What I don't say:

I love your beating heart 

I love that you are here,

Steady, beneath me

That your heartbeat is

A lullaby that sings me to sleep

I love that you are warm,

Solid, that it is so

Easy, an afterthought,

To have you here so safe

Beneath me

I love that you are still here,

Still mostly completely good,

And yourself and more yourself everyday

I love your beating heart

I am still trying to learn

How to say it out loud