Old poetry

I was going through my old e-mail account, trying to find inspiration for one of the characters in my book, and I came across this poem, written a few years ago. I'm posting it here, just so that I have it saved someplace, since I do not use the e-mail account anymore.

WARNING: It does not have explicit language in it, but there is a part or two that addresses adult subject matter. I am human. I have changed and thankfully am not quite the same person I used to be. No one is perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. This poem reminds me of how much I've grown, so I'm sharing it here in the hope that someone else might benefit.

So without further ado...

It has become apparent lately

that my heart is not my own,

It's scattered about with family, with friends, and with

strangers,

and even a bit or two

has fallen to an enemy.


But I always thought reclaiming it

would be a simple feat.

"Mind over matter."

"Walk through the double-doors to baggage claim

at Gate A1 and find it,"

spinning slowly on a conveyer belt in

various packages marked with my

name in permanent black ink.


Some parts of me I'd find in large suitcases, triple-locked

by the persons to whom they were on loan,

packed lovingly in three feet of peanuts and

wrapped in plastic.

Boxed too, out of fear that

the slighest movement during the journey would

cause a crack in the crystal, spill-

ing its contents--all my love, dreams, hopes, and fears--onto

the cold floor as I lifted the baggage from the belt.
The gawkers and the gossipers would laugh heartly at my

misfortune,

taking out their digital cameras

to capture every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime separation

of

self

and

of

soul.



Other parts of me I'd find thrown haphazardly into a duffel, sent to me from the soul's seat of

a man who had

forgotten

that I had given him a part of me to keep

until he found it buried underneath his own pile of self-loathing and tossed it in the trunk,

not thinking it worth returning until years after the fact.

So I'd find it, wet and sticky,

in between

bottles of shampoo and used condoms from

someone other than me.

And I'd remember how I tried to clean it before I gave it to him, and how

he had helped me to forgo the bottle of 409 and the washrag,

immersing it instead in various moments of intense pain

with a topcoat of regret.



Gathering myself, I'd lay the pieces onto the hard tile in an

attempt to reassemble before leaving, starting first with

corner

pieces

and working my way in, all the while

reminding myself that I have never been

great at puzzles.



Standing back to gaze at my collection,

odds

and

ends

of me, arranged in disarrayed neatness,

I'd realize that

a piece of me is

missing.

Knowing to whom I gave it and when and where, I'd think,

"did he take it from my dorm room where I left it

for him

on the blue smiley-face pillow, face-up and trembling?

Or did he leave it there for me to pack away with my pencil cup

and paperclips

and move on?"

"Did he take it from the sofa bed and

pack it in the plastic bag with his toothbrush,

ready for inspection by the angsty airport agents

who have his random number?

Or did he leave it under the cushion for me to find,

and I mistook it for gone

(they are both red after all)?"

"Did he take it in his coffee cup, sloshing in and out

and everywhere

into the cab

and from there to Memphis then to Kentucky, and into

his home and to his kitchen sink

and from there to his bedroom, quite possibly, where he placed it

safe

on the dresser

ready for a return trip back to me sometime in July?

Or did he leave it on the carpet,

underneath his

footprint, for me to find when its smudged outline

becomes

visible after

the next hard rain

that falls behind closed doors

in Comet Circle number 307?"



Shrugging to myself, I take

from the floor what's left of me

and leave, knowing

that I may never be whole again

until my soul meets his soul

sometime

in this life or in the next.


It's become apparent lately

that my heart is not my own.