The breeze of autumn picks up and lifts the little pieces of my life I've yet to nail down. I'm revealed to myself. The shifting sights of folks move from fun in the sun to new horizons, new projects, new jackets, new crushes and classes; it ripples through the atmosphere in step. In step with the 9-5'ers at the crosswalk. In step with the commuters on the mini air jets. Going the distance to stay within a structure they struggled to get, to keep them from struggling against themselves again and again.
My life spills out of bags, all around me a chaotic mess of stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff - sometimes it's just, ahhhh it's too much! Each item pin-points a moment in time, a certain state of mind. What do I carry over and what will I leave behind? Oh if I weren't such a pack-rat attached to this and this and ooh no, can't let go of that. Thinking, always wondering, what if I want to embody that again? What would it go with that I haven't seen yet? So many pieces I never even filled. So many stories waiting to be lived. Shirts and skirts and jackets, maybe lived their tales one night here, one night there across the pond. Another, I'm dreaming for an event to put you on...
My life spills out of bags waiting to be packed again. And again. And another climate, what to bring? My life fills up closets in more than one place. Isn't that the nature of a life such as this? I'm one but my identities look to be many, flung and flung and strung around, left like mile markers to come back around. A bread-crumb of a heel. A chalk-marking of a hat and scarf. Well, the life I'm heading to won't require that. It's all about the lifestyle isn't it? So what will this outfit say to me? What will it bring me to see? Learning lately sometimes you come too far to look back.
When you're trying to figure it out on the run, pieces are more likely to get lost, aren't they? Like thoughts when you spot a memory in a smile, or a realization in a quote, a talk, a teacher, a heart beat, a moment behind closed eyes when your disk gets realigned. You make a note to make a note, too deep in the moment to break out and jot. And inevitable, you forget, but it's still in there somewhere yet. And then you come home and you find your cat is dying.
Down on my knees at her little calico body I've been sitting, crying. Oh but I know, I know, she's not that body. Oh and though I can remember I've been told not to lament for the changing of bodies, I lament that she won't jump on the kitchen counter anymore, who will be there to help us cook? Like the changing of clothes, we put one on to take it off for another, there she slowly goes. Guess I still have some practical lessons to live out. Guess I'm still clinging to worn out outfits. Theory feels good in my backpack where I can carry it safely. But out on the streets, things play out a little more dangerously.
My love of the last two decades is dying. It's my birthday soon too and I wonder if she'll go when I get renewed. And I'm crying, I'm crying, I can't help it, she's hurting, she's lying; broken and bones, barely breathing, so slowly, fluids every now and then seeping. Every hour or so check back to hold the water bowl to her nose. Tsp tsp tsp tsp. Feeble lapping, and I forget about my life spilling out of bags, strewn about the rooms of my house of a life. And I'm taken with this sight of death in progress, with the soul inside her quiet body so close to being free. I check back every hour just to see. Is her little breath still moving what's left?
I half hope it is. I half know she's so close to being free. So I do what I can with a heart full of faith and praying her next life she finds home where the changing seasons won't blow the pieces around so easily. So I do what I can and lean in close to her cold little ear, soft as the day she came home wrapped up in my sister's hands. I whisper the secret prayers, praying the sound makes its way to the spark in her heart and takes this spilling life into a container that won't break anymore.
My life spills out of bags, all around me a chaotic mess of stuff. Stuff, stuff, stuff - sometimes it's just, ahhhh it's too much! Each item pin-points a moment in time, a certain state of mind. What do I carry over and what will I leave behind? Oh if I weren't such a pack-rat attached to this and this and ooh no, can't let go of that. Thinking, always wondering, what if I want to embody that again? What would it go with that I haven't seen yet? So many pieces I never even filled. So many stories waiting to be lived. Shirts and skirts and jackets, maybe lived their tales one night here, one night there across the pond. Another, I'm dreaming for an event to put you on...
My life spills out of bags waiting to be packed again. And again. And another climate, what to bring? My life fills up closets in more than one place. Isn't that the nature of a life such as this? I'm one but my identities look to be many, flung and flung and strung around, left like mile markers to come back around. A bread-crumb of a heel. A chalk-marking of a hat and scarf. Well, the life I'm heading to won't require that. It's all about the lifestyle isn't it? So what will this outfit say to me? What will it bring me to see? Learning lately sometimes you come too far to look back.
When you're trying to figure it out on the run, pieces are more likely to get lost, aren't they? Like thoughts when you spot a memory in a smile, or a realization in a quote, a talk, a teacher, a heart beat, a moment behind closed eyes when your disk gets realigned. You make a note to make a note, too deep in the moment to break out and jot. And inevitable, you forget, but it's still in there somewhere yet. And then you come home and you find your cat is dying.
Down on my knees at her little calico body I've been sitting, crying. Oh but I know, I know, she's not that body. Oh and though I can remember I've been told not to lament for the changing of bodies, I lament that she won't jump on the kitchen counter anymore, who will be there to help us cook? Like the changing of clothes, we put one on to take it off for another, there she slowly goes. Guess I still have some practical lessons to live out. Guess I'm still clinging to worn out outfits. Theory feels good in my backpack where I can carry it safely. But out on the streets, things play out a little more dangerously.
My love of the last two decades is dying. It's my birthday soon too and I wonder if she'll go when I get renewed. And I'm crying, I'm crying, I can't help it, she's hurting, she's lying; broken and bones, barely breathing, so slowly, fluids every now and then seeping. Every hour or so check back to hold the water bowl to her nose. Tsp tsp tsp tsp. Feeble lapping, and I forget about my life spilling out of bags, strewn about the rooms of my house of a life. And I'm taken with this sight of death in progress, with the soul inside her quiet body so close to being free. I check back every hour just to see. Is her little breath still moving what's left?
I half hope it is. I half know she's so close to being free. So I do what I can with a heart full of faith and praying her next life she finds home where the changing seasons won't blow the pieces around so easily. So I do what I can and lean in close to her cold little ear, soft as the day she came home wrapped up in my sister's hands. I whisper the secret prayers, praying the sound makes its way to the spark in her heart and takes this spilling life into a container that won't break anymore.
