July 15, 2020

first, we have to start with nothing

We have to wake, nakedly, from the place of dreams. We have to stumble from the sheets
and gape, slack-mouthed, at the morning ahead, our feet shoddy on the floorboards. 
We have to pitch into an empty kitchen, hands clawing toward a clean mug.
We have to feel shaken from what we’d carried, our bones awkward with the 
unburdening that sleep was, everything that had looked so certain, so clear, even
when we knew it wasn’t. We have to squint against the sharpness of this rough canvas
of a day, the questions that scratch impolitely before we are ready to listen. We have to
remember how small we really are, how permeable. We have to linger in this raw reality
before the task of proving ourselves can begin. We have to marry what we wish we could 
abandon forever. We have to be willing to save ourselves again and again and again.