Avowals

I thought that if I ran fast enough

at dusk, barefoot

I could escape this plane of existence.

Sometimes consciousness

is a sand burr in your flip-flop,

a bee in your bonnet.

I wanted to meet smart people

who spoke as cleverly as books.

I fell in love with different

versions of myself

teased out by different folks.

I wanted to try out every story

for a minute.

Sometimes a moccasin mile is too far,

let alone a whole incarnated life.

I loved like someone with their hair on fire

behind soundproof glass.

I loved outside the lines

in the coloring book:

in all directions

with too much pressure.

Some days I taste sadness

in a little well

below my collarbone

where I keep my rejection slips

and broken promises,

my dashed hopes

and lost darlings,

but the taste doesn’t make it

to my tongue, my lips.

Laughter burbles up first,

all the quiet miracles to be grateful for.

Why, just yesterday, hundreds of bugs

were crawling over my windows

you can’t imagine the horror,

but I swept them up 

with a song in my heart

because the sun was shining.

It all ends the same

and I’ve been told that’s ok

at the deepest level

from a high enough vantage point.

No half-empty glass

no half-full glass

no glass

only water’s reflection

in the dark that is light.

—Kai Cooley