Are you ever here with me? (A poem)
I have a longing for you
that ebbs and flows.
I do not know what makes it swell.
Often in dreams —
maybe nightmares —
I'm wandering corridors, looking for comfort,
not knowing how to ask.
As if you should understand it as I do:
without words,
without thought,
without effort.
That isn't how this works.
I know it.
(I still want it to.)
We both still want it too,
though we only admit it
when we're pushed.
This is the fear of unrequested solitude —
silence that comes from outside
rather than in.
So we keep an arm's length,
and in that length, a chasm:
self-doubt,
loneliness,
the belief we are not worthy of each other.
Entire lifetimes in that space.
Could-have-beens
instead of are.
This longing disappears
into the labyrinth of that space,
lost for days
or weeks
or months.
I am lucky
when the ball of yarn
rolls down a corridor
and is swallowed up.
We seek out something
at the heart of this space between us,
yarn in hand.
Are you ever here,
in this labyrinth with me?