in the spotlight i look for some protection
this weight of things bigger than me makes me feel inside out
crawling around and in motion
i'm looking for what i'm feeling right now
something new has been triggered
it comes in news of births and people making the transition from best friends to mothers
the shift of her face is evident
on the video
and in the pictures
she looks whole now
she looks calm
eating dinner across from a two year old
and feeling her little eyes pour over me and what i am
smiling at those brown eyes
curious and full
it took her a while to release me from her visual grip
inside those moments i kept meeting her eyes and looking for myself in them
that was me i said
under my breath
that was me 34 years ago
what has the time made of me?
the only thing that has changed
is my age
not the memory
something broke inside me a little bit right there at the table
where i was surrounded by strangers turned family
something that lives on the surface of my emotion
something i can't shake as hard as i try
it remains there and won't let me go.
i started thinking
with all this around me
and i recognized that it was about this time that i was conceived
and i wondered if i ever cross your mind
it was in mid october that my life forever changed
the signature of a mother turned stranger proved to be the severing of the person i was not born to become
i have learned to just accept all that i will never know
but sometimes there in the quiet moments
and new lives that come into mine
i am reminded of my beginning
and it makes me think of my end
and how in a lot of ways i've carried on the idea of severance
i have chosen to not be a mother to a child who will bring me closer to those i no longer recall
i have emotionally kept myself at such great heights
that no one can really penetrate my emotion at will
the laborious climb makes some tired
and the waiting has made me impatient
still i climb my indestructible ladder
because i recognize the precarious edges
and the slippery slopes
i don't use any map because i don't have one
and though i might be falling a little bit in love
i fight the urge to lay down and stop climbing
so she can reach me
because something inside of me tells me she's good for the climb
just as something is telling her that i'm good for the climb to her
and somehow inside this sadness of memories
and moments
and new little lives
i remember it's all ok
because it has always been ok
and because i know in my bones that i have survived the hardest parts
and those emotions that live on the surface
they will always remain
as the reminder that i have travelled so far
and still have so far yet to go...
