Risk the question,
the one that trembles in the darkness
of the solitude you keep
in fleeting moments and passages that propel you,
skittish and sorrowful,
to the doorway of your hidden self.
Let it shudder its wild breath,
run every filament up and down your spine
until you know the curl of each taunting word,
carry its thickening bile and searing rasp,
the want that fills you up.
You have been been walking these shadows
in your sleep, in flimsy conversation, skimming peripheries
and promises made in too distant a past
to remember what it is that you pledged.
There are new skins craving the shape of you.
Pour yourself into the slow reveal.
Follow the tug, the terror, the strangeness that beckons,
as you bring yourself to the edge, imagine
the wind and weightlessness, the rush
of plunging in.
Enough with this trickery, with dousing
each flare that begs the rearranging, removal,
that bears the ripe bloom of uncertainty.
There is some change that needs you.
Keep your own fierce counsel, practice surrender.
Ask the question. Enter the larger story
that was always yours to live.