familiarity
i’ve lived here too long to be romantic about this city,
(at least that’s what i tell myself until -
driving up sarcee tr at 10 p.m. on new year’s eve)
the lights spread out, a sudden smile, thrumming and blinking, as alive as ever.
and i’m caught without breath for the millionth time.
my tear ducts clearly still know how to work, i mean this is why i write -
this is why i drive in the dark – flexing heart muscles and remembering how to feel enchanted.
i’ve told my friends i believe in magic
i just know it all has a name
and it’s a name wrapped around the city limits on new year’s eve, close and warm and defenseless
familiarity is a weight that doesn’t have to be a burden. i am
dancing with new friends in the dark as coldplay bumps around the kitchen and seeps out the floorboards
(roasting broccoli while standing on one foot, scribbling in novels of newly-turned stories,
moving boxes into a house wreathed by trees and apple-cider sunlight,
rediscovering the joy/frustration of living with just me, just others, just us,
writing oceanloads of poetry that stay locked up in a file folder
and sometimes shared, where the cut of my dress and the bite of my words disguise
my complete un-anonymity and strangers nod fiercely at my salvaged pain
glimpsing quick pieces of the divine in the metaphors and wit of the homeless,
sharing meals with beautiful souls, communion of red wine and quinoa and squash and bbq’d chicken,
coming home to a sister and a well-loved window view)
the year has slipped under my skin and dug in fingernails and yet here it is. here i am,
flicking the page and trusting that whatever’s on the other side can breathe beautiful through the ugly.
i’ve lived here too long to be romantic about this city,
and yet at new year’s eve an irrational hope swells in me and i can’t help but believe
in the strength of spirit, the magnificent generosity of what people can be. what i can be.
i am all courage in this moment, i am all love
and though i know my corners will be worn down by the tide and edges roughened
i know, suddenly, that wonder still exists, that i can help uncover it and spread it over the night in fistfulls.
so weave me in cross-stitch over the universe’s eyes
let me never forget how to be surprised at how stories end
throw me through the branches of history’s tree so i barely grab the trunk in time
let me be a constellation-carrier, let me never fear the dark
if i carve question marks into ancient stone let me not leave them
for churning emptiness to fill. let me be still and know
how little i know and swerve up their curved spinal cords
and remember how to be cradled by mystery.
let me be a birdsong in the throat of God
thirsty for grace.
let me face everything with unquenched eyes
let me taste sea salt at the corner of my lips
long before i can hear the roar of the ocean
let me abide,
let me remain,
let me change,
let me love more of the new,
let me love more of the same.
