I am waiting

I am writing here
because you can't hear me.
While our fingers may touch
and our eyes may meet and part,
there is no communion
between our souls.
Words spill forth,
coming and going,
touching into details about
the weather
and the season
and this and that,
but never settling deep
below the surface
of clouds and flowers
and all appearances.

Lightness can be comforting.
It can smooth away all the rough edges,
and sweep away the pain of
lifetimes
of very real human suffering.
But when those rough edges become smooth,
something deeper becomes exposed
to the light of day.
Something vulnerable,
something naked,
something once hidden very deeply.
And the dust that was once
and again
swept beneath the rug
begins to pile up,
and spill out once more.

We trip and fall on the bumps and lumps
and suddenly,
the lightness becomes glaring,
a farce.
A lie.

I stood today,
facing an empty chair.
Though you were not sitting in it,
I felt no difference.
Are you there when you are there?
Do you hear me
see me
know me
any more when you are sitting here before me?
And do you even know what that means?
Is it even possible for you to stop
within the echo chamber
of your own mind
for even a moment,
just for a second,
and allow the light of another to enter?
It seems to me that within all that
endless chatter
and forced lightness
there is a barrier,
allowing nothing to enter or leave.
Do you feel that?
Do you feel like you are in prison?
Rattling there, within the walls of your own mind,
what do you feel?

I cannot ever know
your experience.
I cannot ever know what it
feels like
within your body
mind
soul.
I may never understand
what your days are like,
what your demons tell you
in the small hours of the morning.

I have been trying for
so
many
years
to penetrate
the high walls of your fortress.
Flashes of love
and caring
seep through sometimes,
and are quickly swallowed by
the wild battalion of
swirling thoughts,
all competing for
center stage.
One of them surely must
hold
center
stage.
Maybe they all just need to battle it out,
up and down
and love and hate
and apathy and sorrow and joy
all swirling there,
as they do in each and every one of us.
Is there no center?
Who is the One who orchestrates here?
Do you know?

I give up.
I cannot reach you.
I have done everything within my power
to earn your love
to earn your acceptance
to earn your connection.
I have filled my life
with achievements
and stories
and I am tired now.
None of it has ever gotten through.
And I am left with the question,
who am I living this life for, anyway?


I want to be seen for who I am beyond my doing.
Beyond the layers of collected identity.
I want to be accepted for who I am,
body, mind, and spirit,
with no qualifications
and no exceptions.
I want to be known,
met in the depths of my soul.
I want to be loved
with the full knowing of who I am.
I have walked away many times now,
but I cannot walk away any more.
I don't have any answers now,
all the old ones have expired before my eyes.
I am waiting.