The Direction of Things

If I had to paint a picture of my soul,
it would be one exhaustive sigh of color
spilling across the canvas of what I thought life
was supposed to look like--
to feel like.

Brief in nature, yet it catches the eye--
like the red of a poppy in a sea of green,
the sparkling flecks of light on a pond,
the blue of a jay’s feather in a pile of leaves.
You might miss it if you don’t look closely,
and that is how I’ve felt for much of my life--
wedged between being seen and overlooked.

I see myself clearly even though I am misunderstood,
meaning slips through the cracks between us:
I speak plainly, while you speak in tongues.
I am not the black sheep,
nor the golden child, nor the martyr.

I am the space in-between breaths,
Neither the exhale or the inhale.

I am so tangled in myself
that I belong nowhere.
I am not the arrow,
but its direction.
You do not see me,
hear me, or feel me--
yet I am needed
for anything to move forward.

It is a lonely existence,
to be unto oneself--
to be the surrounding space
rather than the one who fills it.

Perhaps some of us were not brought here
to experience the fleeting embrace of the world,
but to hear its whisper--
solely to share that knowing
with those who only see its surface.

There are moments I ache to be the arrow--
To be anything but myself.
I am plain in nature, unassuming,
or that word I fear most: boring.

Right now, I am content to be in the same place,
rooted in the present moment as a kind of journey.
Each time I look inward, something new arises within me.
It’s hard to explain.
​
I can only hope that it is worth being the vessel that carries all of you.