How long I’ve sought to understand
what can only be experienced,
or to experience what can only be
constructed in the mind:
life and perfection, respectively.
A year spent in isolation, working alone
in a giant building,
coming home to the clamor and chaos
of small children:
lather, rinse, repeat.
Sore, aching, fat,
I wake to energy and optimism,
and go to sleep with resignation
or despair,
popping my diversions as though
they were pills,
looking for a brief shot of oblivion.
Trying to love through
this castle of selfishness I dwell within;
trying to feel loved
lying on the bed of nails
that is self-awareness —
year fifty-nine has had far too much truth
to have quite enough happiness.
And yet breathing:
the inhalation of hope,
the exhalation of resolve;
the inhalation of stillness,
the exhalation of calm;
the breathing in of grief, and
the breathing out of sorrow —
These are the years,
a year, another year,
the undefinable significance
of a life, all our lives,
these beehives we call minds,
these oceans we call hearts
