of one thing
i am sure
and that is
that i am
unsure of
myself
and it’s funny
how i can’t
sleep but my
chest closes its
eyes and hums
with a heartbeat
that is unsure of
itself, too.
i try to morph
into a body
i don’t feel
belongs to me
just so i can
fit somewhere
fit in somewhere
and i tell so
many stories
about the
universe, it
forever feels
like i am trying
to remain lost.
i am unsure
of myself;
connecting the
moles on my
skin as if they
will spell out
something bigger
so i can feel
like i matter,
at least for
a little while.
i sleep beside
myself, stare at
a reflection
so unfamiliar
i couldn’t even
identify it in
a crowd of
strangers, but
i am trying.
and one day
i’m sure i’ll
be sure
of myself but
until then,
i’ll morph into
someone i can
be proud of
and hope that
the universe
sends me back
to myself.

i am in a haze today. it is cloudy and beautiful outside. it is also pressing down on my chest and i struggle for air. i wore your shirt to bed last night and it helped steady my oxygen supply. i wish you were here to say my name and speak to me in my native tongue to remind who i am and where i've come from. i'm forgetting everything, slowly. recreating yourself is only good when you haven't done it five thousand times over. i just want to be me now. but how do i become me if there is no you? pick me up from the library and walk me to class. hold my hand and tell me that you will stay with me no matter how grey the sky is or how cold my fingers feel.

i have anxiety
undiagnosed.

sometimes it feels like my head is stuffed with crumpled ***** of paper: the things I never said, the things I should have never said, the things that someone never said to me.

all of these things are written on every piece of paper
there are so many right now that no more would be able to fit
yet i can't stop thinking things, i can't stop saying stupid things, i can't stop wishing things.

i sigh I reach up to my forehead and i grasp my bangs
with my shaky hands and pull

i'm hoping one day when i do this
the top of my head will yank open
all of these crumpled pieces of thoughts
will pour out in a pile
on the floor
i will kneel down
and uncrumple each and every piece
i will read each one
until my head fills up again.

To the Goddess of morn
who made bread from fire
and taught me how to read
to read the wreaths of coffee
into the songs of dawn.

And to the Mason who
showed me how to hammer,
form out of chaos
and cherish the scent of
the cement on grey-green walls.

© LazharBouazzi

the urge to Be compels
realization of landscape
in a soul
landscape made of
faith
lines on a graph made
natural by Love
moving those lines into
infinite
          coherence
infinite
          expansion
in­finite
         depth
an art beyond the known
a Love beyond the known
captured within the
landscape of the wing
and the dancing flight
of the butterfly

how is faith, Faith?

Faith is Constancy
from egg to worm to flighted
being
no matter the changes
Constancy abides within each
remarking the moment when
coherence meets Coherence
when
movement meets Movement
and the egg expands
into the infinite
inevitability --- its
ineluctable moment of Love
when love meets Love
and Is

how is love, Love?

Love is Knowing
from egg to worm to flighted
Being
it is knowing which flow
contains me
which flow is mine to express
and which expression ---
each minute expression ---
has precedence in any moment
and thus I eat
I fulfill myself
until the leaf has been
finished and I am full of
the Knowing to stop ---
to allow the expansion of faith
the expansion of Love
into another coherence
another flow
another containment within
Love
expanded beyond my present
into Presence
into a Being unknown
by any but Love
as Love
each coherence
carried on the wing

the landscape of the butterfly
painted on its wing
by Love


c. 2018 Roberta Compton Rainwater