Everyone Loves My Hat
There is no foam left inside me to groan,
to spill out.
I can see now, that my life
has been all about dumping myself out allovertheplace.
Pulling myself limb from limb
for you for her for everyone.
I had to name my pain as quickly as possible,
because telling my story, showing strangers my pain,
is my ultimate hiding place.
It keeps the pain from dropping down, getting inside
me (Where it belongs)
So I don't have to feel anything,
not really, not deeply.
Though the checkout girl gained so much, I am sure,
When I cried and bled in her aisle,
as I gave my feelings to her.
My only necessity is silence.
Locking up the compulsion to give all the light in me
away, I am burning
from the inside out.
(No I'm not. I am only burning. Finally.)
There is so much of me to hold, I want to crack,
to tell the secret.
Preferably in a multi-media crescendo,
where my t-shirt says,"I feel god inside me."
On the back, I have scratched out "Want some?"
Instead, I watch it all go by.
All the urges to give myself away
to deny my essence.
I have been sliding down a mystical chute.
I am overcome with translucent tenderness,
and a patience that feels huge and invasive
compared to who I used to be.
That my freckles, my lips, my nose remain the same is
a lie.
I am so much more alive in my new silence.
My capacity for love, for juicy guts, has grown.
Under my old yellow hat,
I am changed.