Over time
the heavy of you
has gotten so much lighter
the weight of my affection
has decreased
to something manageable
pocket sized
only visible when I decide
to take it out and look at it
and even then
it’s just a glance
sometimes a lingering gaze
but nothing I can’t handle
cuz I’m in control now
I learned how to buck the system
the one where
my anxieties had me
strung up
doing a painful puppet dance
slave to their uncomfortable beat
but those days are over
cuz I finally accepted that
I would never be able to outrun
my heart
couldn’t even escape it
by hiding in the darkness
of my own shadow
it’s etched there too
so I stopped running
resisting
got proactive
realized I couldn’t just
hang around and wait for time
to make things better
in its own time
I had to get aggressive
and push the clock forward
when the sun shines so brightly
in your path that you can’t see clearly
beats down on you with so much vigor
that you feel assaulted
you don’t stay there
exposed to its harshness
you find ways to diffuse it
protect yourself
so you don’t get burned
now
when I window-shop you
it’s from a healthy distance
without the compulsion to
rearrange your exhibited position
reaccessorize you to fit my preferences
I accept that I may only be able
to admire you from afar
where I fantasize briefly about
what it would be like
what it would be like
to take you off display
out of the view and reach
of the others who’ve been
coveting you
and then I keep walking
can’t loiter too long
cuz time has a tendency
to get away from you
if you don’t monitor it closely
it’ll run amok and then have you
scrambling to backtrack on
important things you didn’t tend to
while you were distracted
like keeping the pieces of yourself
in proper order
from coming unassembled
and amid the chaos of your undoing
you’ll realize you were so busy
standing unprotected in the unbearable sun
getting scorched
that now there’s not enough time
to put yourself back together
before the parts get lost
Copyright 2014
Charlene E. Green
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