Jaymee Thomas | + Follow Poet |
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Draft - it is everywhere

Since you asked me directly,

I can tell you about it, only indirectly.
The weeks and months and years
now that it happened,
and still happens from time to time 
when I am really paying attention and ready
to play.

It's been a while since we cat-and-moused, 
keep-away, red rover, fill-in-the__________.
Those were my favorite, and the hardest days.

Clues everywhere, even the garbage in the street,
shouted meaningful missives when I was listening.
You talked my ears raw, 
made me feel a little crazy
from time to time.

No one else would understand it like it happened,
no one else is meant to, I suppose, so 
if I want to share then I have to wait until I am asked.

Even then it's not direct, even though
you asked as if you already know, too,
I cannot say it plainly,
but I can try to show you - don't blink
or you'll miss it.

It started with noticing, well, that's not true.
Or not entirely true, first there was the yearning.
I wanted to know something. 
I had no idea what I wanted to know but I knew 
a lot of people seemed to find a lot of stuff in church 
when they wanted to Know things —
they knocked at the altar.

Not to worry, that is not my story — or not a very big part of it
anyway.
In the beginning, it came cloaked as divinity,
a familiar costume and unlikely to spook me,
and after all, I was already wanting to know.

That phase didn't last long,
a calling - wrong number, trying to escape
the contradictions, a broken book full of them.

The ensuing chase, now that was divine,
even as your cloak fell away, 
our entanglement specifically luxurious
and brief as an Edwardian era.

I forced your invisible hand, demanded 
reckoning for every forgiveness, made too big a deal,
shook the curtain and felt childish
for my bland neediness,
the physical dependency on your shows of proof,
macro displays there for the taking all this time,
trying to steal what you always had on offer
at no cost.

The reflection as a terrible aching tooth,
harvesting care roots and sharing a hutch,
even still if you can catch the swing of it and prove 
it to be scrutinized microscopically,
everything had meaning, nothing was wasted
except on me,
it didn't sit that well 
from time to time.

You showed up 
everywhere, showed me 
everywhere, every fold and angle,
it was there,
even in an old fat man running in his dressing gown.
Where am I in that? I asked,
then I could smell myself as him, 
recognized
his stride, familiar as I walk now exactly
in his steps.
I was as they were 
when this was his place,
his sense of himself that stayed —
that's not all, doesn't even begin 
the beginning of the story
of the single history of how 
underneath the underneath 
of this,
one man in a gown, 
even from that random slice,
you can kaleidoscope effortlessly to yourself, or anyone else,
anywhere else,
the same place.

Copyright © Jaymee Thomas | Year Posted 2023

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