All I Ever Wanted (or, Spiraling)
The word is not the thing, yet if I
tell you he is tender you can feel it.
If I tell you, he raged like a volcano,
erupting, you can guess what I mean.
I can paint you a picture, and you don’t
have to be a painter to understand it.
All I ever wanted was to be understood.
It sounds so simple. For someone to see
what I was saying, and have it make
sense to them. I gave up too soon.
Easier to just make people laugh, than
to tell them the truth of my longing.
Healing isn’t a circle, it’s a spiral. We
aren’t trapped on a hamster wheel,
spinning and going nowhere. The same
issues repeat, but on a higher level, as
we grow through them.
My thoughts and my words are important,
I don’t need validation and yet, some days
I do, and am suddenly back to my sullen
seven year old self; No one gets me.
Screw you people. I like birds better.
Every now and then, I don’t know how to end
a poem. Most always they arrive congealed,
I’m just the scribe who writes them down.
I spend a lot of time alone, a childhood re-
visitation and music is the circle, still, all
these years later ~ the soul soother, comfort
bringer, sensitive witness, love note to
humanity, no words necessary.
It’s a paradox: I need words, yet love the
places where I don’t need them. My words
are bridges. A steadying grace. An offering
to love.
LBM 1/16/2024
