grateful

You know how it is when a footballer scores, the running, and knee slides, and kisses to heaven?  That’s me, when your comments come in.  A day later, it’s blown itself out.

What stays is this.

That your words, bright as November leaves, eddied in my head and settled in drifts in my heart.  Like leaves left on rose beds they darkened and softened, lay close to the ground, then are the ground.  The way you are kind, the way you are generous, shows me how I can be to myself.  What you see in my writing starts to become what I see in myself.

How did the rose ever open its heart
and give to this world all its beauty?
It felt the encouragement of light against its being.
Otherwise, we all remain too frightened. – Hafiz

When you told me how you were drawn in, or could feel this or see that, you showed me that I can distil and shape experience.

When you loved that line, and you that image, I learned to trust the delight I felt in writing them.

When you said it’s real, raw and honest, and in the same breath beautiful, I stopped thinking ‘what have I done, to write like this?’ and knew that I was safe.

When you said how much you relate, or that you feel just the same, I felt relieved, and glad to feel the same as you.

When you shared your experience, similar or different, you expanded mine.  And I saw that I don’t have to say it exactly right, because you already get it, better than I do.

You told me to keep writing, you asked for more, you texted ‘You gonna be gr8’ and promised to keep nagging.  And I understood that anything I do, we do together.

You sent a squeezy-huggy emoji and said you’re glad we’re friends.  You told me you laughed, and I laughed to imagine it.

Knowing, from you, what connection feels like, I know when it’s not there.  Wanting it again, I look in the last place I think of, and find a crescent of a smile in my heart.  Its ends stretch up, and touch my face, and tilt the edges of my mouth.  It fills and broadens until I’m sufficient and full as the rising moon.

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to
them, ‘Love me.’
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us
to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a full
moon in each eye that is always saying,
with that sweet moon language, what every other
eye in this world is dying to hear? – Hafiz.

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