just go to bed

i can't. so here i am. blinking cursor, my confessor. how do i describe this place. why do i even try?

i read through a fist full of poems tonight, to sympathetic ears. those who could let me weep while i read and not expect a performance. those who could contain my sorrow and not ask me to pack it up. but offered me some of them, who they are, their words, their poems, their lives.

this is the great secret of poetry readings. we become intimates. we share our deepest fears and secret longings. we speak unguarded (to those who understand).

i was thinking about a friend from church, the lovely 84 year young helen who said she might make an appearance at my open mic, and i thought, wow, that would be something. to admit a frequent of my daily life to something so intimate as this. would it change what i will read? will it make me hide? likely not, i hope only for those braving the forum to have the trustworthiness to handle what they will hear.

marion woodman says,

someone must hold consciousness for a group.

i take that to mean, we are all not expected to hold consciousness. but one must.

so many questions. so many uncertainties.

i penned the words in my journal,

i'm certain

and nothing followed. which was possibly the most honest thing i could say. i'm certain of nothing. no thing. it had been that way for a while, and it is evermore that way now.

we step out with tottering steps, crossing what seems to be a chasm on a very thin line, uncertain of how we'll make it. trusting unseen hands to hold us steady. unseen wings to bear us up if we should fall. and fall we do.

or at least i do.

i spend more time muddied and bleeding than anything.

tonight as i read a poem about this phenomenon, at least one other poet said,

that is also my experience.

for that, i am grateful. that i could pen the words of another with accuracy. and that in our space of trust acknowledgement of that place could be shared.

i feel very alone these days. though i am often surrounded in spirit by many, it is hard not to feel alone. a room full of people has never been the answer to my isolation. only the presence of a soul willing to say,

this is my truth, is it also yours?

someone willing to sit with the uncomfortable truth and feel the sting of tears. unashamed.

i will go to bed now, but i don't know why. i just lie there. i guess sometimes, it makes sense to do a thing until it becomes normal again. sleep will return at some point. but for now, i watch darkness descend and wonder when it will be light.