Poem
I Need Another Life
I need another life to live to make sense of this one.
Another morning to stand inside this morning.
Another body to walk beside the one I wear
and watch how it falters,
how it loves,
how it trembles at the smallest edge of loss.
I need another life
to understand why I was given this particular sky,
this narrow doorway of years,
this heart that insists on breaking open
at the slightest rumor of beauty.
I want to know
why longing feels so familiar
and why belonging arrives
only after I stop asking for it.
I want to know
if the ground beneath me
has always been sufficient
and it was I
who refused to stand still long enough
to feel it.
In another life
I would walk back through this one slowly,
touching each door I slammed in fear,
each hand I did not hold,
each silence I mistook for exile.
I would sit beside my younger self
and say:
You are … not lost.
You’re only early.
But I don’t have another life.
I have this breath.
This splashing heart.
This one unrepeatable crossing.
And maybe that’s the secret:
that meaning doesn’t wait
at the end of living
like a prize.
It shows only
When a pain, or a perfect smile,
is suddenly so enthralling
that my mouth stops
and hangs open.
I need another life to live to make sense of this one.
And yet—
This one,
Embraced as it is
in a smear of decades,
is finally breaking in.☀️