Where, I ask, exhausted, did my creativity go?
Was it shadowed by my many burdens
and finally let go?
Did I forget to save a seat for it
while I rode the highway of life –
carrying every ounce of every day
in a heavy sack by my side?
Did I leave my creativity far behind
and outside of the boundaries
I once hungered to avoid reviving in my mind?
Or has it leapt ahead of me,
light-years away to a time
I could never expect to write or reach?
And will it only greet me again
in the next life
in shoes that another more
worldly and traveled other would wear
better than the ones I, alone, attempt to fit?
Have I,
just a here-and-now speck of dust
that tumbles aimlessly along,
reached the limit I somehow self-inflicted
earlier on
to stop me from rhyming more
about what I might never know,
or perhaps, am never meant to find?
Shall my questions be the soothing pets
that follow me like loyal friends
but somehow stay an arms length away
and whisper secrets I could never
– even with a stethoscope –
allow myself to hear?
Knowing what I know, would I detain them
to keep them near?
Shall I, neither ancient, nor elder,
try to understand the heart-beat silence that,
like a disease, runs impatiently through these veins?
If it returned, would my creative other
fall like pounding rain into my arms and dissolve itself of any sin
by becoming, yet again, a part of what it once was in?
Would my creativity starve, or feast,
by sinking and syncing deep within?
If I handed it the keys, I am certain
we would both deserve to win;
but neither I can, and neither it will,
because without each other
we simply
– both –
are frozen, less, and still.