"Dibs"
you used to claim, smiling, and pointing at me.
It was a joke and I used to laugh,
but it buffered my relationship with
Men from Home
by cloaking my presence
with preoccupation.

Like royalty,
I caroused with you
the City of Sand,
safe to be free with innocence.
and the Kingdom I surveyed
was glamorous.

Then, after That Spring,
I fled, and
found myself facing unbuffered men
almost naked;
Without your jacket
I was chilly,
and my body was offered the
sticky hot sweat of **** Sapien Hands
for warmth.

Smooth operations
against my naive flesh
left callouses and bruises
only I can be responsible for
accepting.
I was generous
with the pieces of skin
I wore and tore for the pleasure of others,
hoping to find you again,
or someone close.

But this new kingdom
was not Glamorous
was not innocent or funny
or warm.
Living in the squalor of my own choices
a derelict of my own self-abandonment
I became Queen of the Grunge
and it was painful,
I tell you it hurt!

Homecoming Queen
dons a shiny elastic crown
but Homegoing Queen
wears a ***** one of thorns.

For a while, I wore it
allowed it to obscure my vision
and warp my mirror's depiction.
Scars I mistook for knowledge,
and though they have made me wiser,
it is impossible to prune the
Diadem of Dirt
when its very composition is barb.

So:
atop my head I wore two crowns
and from across my shoulders
I shed one coat.
Bruises I gained as well as experience
and a new empire I consorted.
And indeed my mind's severe questions
took my body places I doubt it thought it would ever go,
But as I return to our former palace,

I realize The Answers
for which I was so desperately searching
could be found deep in the Sand,
and that the more intensely
the more earnestly
my hands shovel into the dirt,
the warmer it becomes.

Now, I smile
As the Sand starts to glow
with the diamond fire of my own soul
and I am warm in just my healing skin.

Now, I return Home
and discover the circularity of enlightenment
as I am filled with the Gusto of Me
and of finding my buried treasure
deep within the Sand,
deep within my love.

I can take it anywhere
Because I know
I feel
I am
My own.