I need a little in my life

i need a little in my life.

i'm pretty much a toddler most days myself 

i think it would be incredible to live life with a little elf

someone loud

someone gentle

i really don't care

just someone to flow through the days with

in a world all our own

someone who would totally answer a call

on an invisible phone

someone who always knows more than me and can see the things I can't

someone who doesn't know how lucky they are to find a tiny stone until I celebrate the moment 

with them the way only I can 

now i am on my way towards forty two

and i know how it happens but i can't seem to get through

the fear and hesitation the timing and all that

all i know, is the "it only takes one time" is total crap!

i just thought it would happen, i'd freak out and then

meet them. Now, it seems it was up to me to plan and pay attention

i've carried this heartbreak for so many years

i'm exhausted by the why not me 

and have no more tears

i hate that there isn't someone standing in my doorway

i hate that i am not constantly interrupted during my day

i hate that there's no point in cooking, gardening or reading a book

if i knew i would live without children

before being born i'd have asked for a second look

and i may have decided that it wouldn't be worth it at all

and i may have just stayed in my pre-birth state

i need to thank the children, who ran into my arms

it was always their decision to respond to my charms

as i totally fell in love with them and would have given them the world.

i am deeply grateful to all the ones i loved, the ones i count as my own

forever. 

But they have grown up. 

And i am not okay, thank God for Zoe - Mailee and incredible bright eyed Shay!!

There is no one safe

   There is no one safe.

And I'm writing poetry and saying everything

I'm tearing open my heart and sharing it's thoughts

what kind of happening is this

what's going on

to step right into silence and feel it's icy wind

to scream out all my wonderings and wonder if 

i'm the only one who listens

does any of it matter to anyone at all?

why am i running headlong into this fall?

this would look so reckless, or maybe mostly brave

So i am scared of everyone

and i'm not that far from my cave

I could still find my way there and no one would have

to know, that I ever stepped into the madness, that 

I ever left the gentle flow.

They would never have to see my tears when I was

very mad, and they would never have to know how

desperately i longed for isolation when i was sad

They wouldn't hear words so they wouldn't know feelings

they wouldn't be able to throw things 

be unyeilding

There is no one safe

but i stand in the storm shouting out all that i am

and waiting my turn to turn pages and pages

read reckless brave words written by me

or perhaps sung by some birds

There is no one safe

not a one in this land

then why do i reach out a quivering hand?

one small cloud unseen

  elated.

  heart racing.

  This is the feeling of falling in love, and yet, tonight i am simply reading a story for the children of this town. that is all. my voice, reading words carefully with feeling to children, what children i do not know, maybe one, maybe many. Perhaps they are listening so attentively, perhaps they are scrolling by my voice along with a miriad of other devices, perhaps (dare i imagine) perhaps they are under a blanket with their own phone, thinking they are a little too old for bedtime stories and yet.. smiling as they are carried into dreams they didn't know they could dream.

  elated

 heart racing.

   This is my path, my purpose, my why i am here. I wonder though, i panic a little, did i come to the table too late. For so long i wanted to start something here, gather children around me and tell them stories, explore fields and gather rocks and feathers and sticks. And now, when I am leaving them, now when 

I am saying goodbye, I offer this invitation.

elated

heart racing

just beginning to fall apart 

   Why did i have to waste so much time in fear. Why was I so slow to find courage? 

i have to do this. I have to read stories and more than read, inhabit them and tell them with my eyes bright and my imagined realm surrounding them, until they can call it up on their own. This is my calling, to help

them see, for times that are hard and for times that are happy. There is always a story and it is always what is needed. 

   elated

   heart racing

   just beginning to fall into my part in this performance

   

   my stage. the earth. my coworkers the trees and flowers. my friends the rivers and oceans.

   my inspiration the wind and my home the clouds. oh the clouds.

   lovely rolling clouds.

   they are perhaps just as frightened as i am. 

   will they fill with water and roar thundrously about

    there is no guarentee that they will be a gentle wispy cloud,

one that people gaze up at and say, " i see a sheep" no " i see a great ship"

  oh look - oh look.

perhaps they are this lovely of a cloud, but they come at a time when

the sky is crowded and no one can see the shape that they are.

Perhaps this is my story.

My story about the cloud that wasn't seen.

and the courage it took her to.. to.. fly lower.. fly out on her own.

I say I want to run to the dark forest at night and survive. 

Perhaps that is courage, but this too, this revealing of oneself, this obvious

cloud beingness in broad day light.

elated

heart racing

does anyone undertand.

do i.

i need to find my story.