Twenty-One
2021-04-30

***

Come spring, there will be a garden in the backyard.
And I know that it will be hard
to convince my fingers to dig into the dirt,
to convince them that this time
it will not hurt,
they will not bleed,
that things will grow from the ground
lush and ripe and able to my hunger feed.

A year and a half ago, I almost died
wandering the town square,
waiting for the library to open again
so I could from my mother
and her screaming matches
and her commercialism
and her endless onslaught of interruptions
hide.
My thighs were burning,
not from the labors of childbirth,
but from the frostnip thawing-
and, by Goddess, did it *hurt*.
Flesh as human,
almost a refugee.

I was test-running homelessness
like it were a new car,
like it came with a commercial:
freedom
and a world
stretched out in front of me
that I could hold
if only my palms could handle infinity.

But I didn't want to leave
my favorite tree
behind.
I couldn't stand to watch the rain
come down and feel the pain
in my heart, asking:
what is it worth if I gain
the world but lose
my life because I felt
I could only choose
scraping by on the skin of my belt?

I tell myself, one of these days I will run.
I will slip out once the sun
has gone to its own home
and I will leave mine forever.

But all that I do
is as if
I will stay.

I reach
for the sky
as I dig my own grave.

I let Mother
and Grandmother
and people I only know through my mother
buy me gifts
I know I have not the room to abscond with.
I fix my desktop,
giving it a new shot
at life under my desk.
I buy a game,
even knowing it insane,
so much money just to stare into a screen
and let the remnants color my dreams.

But in the remnants
I find a baby quilt
faded and soft
that speaks of unconditional love and shelter.

In the remnants
I find myself laughing
at a homemade cake,
lopsided, wildly off-kilter.

In the remnants
I find a life worth patching back together.

I find a garden
and a bicycle
and a gentle rhythm
of pleasures simple.

There is no audience to please.
There is no greatness to be attained.
Just go enjoy your life.
The outcome will be the same.

You survived Goddess' trial,
convinced you had to cut yourself down,
but instead you slashed open your chest and let forth
an ocean so deep she might drown.

And what scares you is that, if she does,
you might not emit a single sob,
for your love stands at your back and whispers,
"Create a world with no need for gods."

Over and over again
you find yourself
discovering there was never any other way.

Over and over again
you find yourself
reaffirming the decision to stay.

***

CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 (c) Vane Vander
