Difficult for unpracticed hands
Valuing it, protecting it, nurturing it.
It should have been all that she needed to carry
She felt sure it was there,
In the dark place
Beneath the joy,
Between this breath
And the next laugh.

I see some echo of it there still.
It shows itself in the negative spaces
And desperately needs the light and air.
She thinks it small and cheap, and well-covered
Beneath the bite of a vinegar voice
In the folds of a silken smile
Muffled by the thick wool of persona.
  
She keeps her arms folded
Her irises blank.
Idly pulling loosened threads,
And tunes the prototype.

Sometimes there is the terror
Of cutting isolation
Of an icy apartness  
In a dense and moving crowd
Of friends and cohorts.

Once she tried to let it free.
Arms spread wide in the street.
Ready to give that gift to herself
From deep within the erected façade
Amid the mass of anonymous humanity,
Amid the ******* legs and cab-hailing arms.

Later, a mirror brings a cold draft
Chilled by the empty spaces.
And then a fear,
Not knowing where it was anymore.
Hidden too deeply?
Lost along the path?

Maybe it was never given to her at all.