Tag: the body remembers

I have been thinking about the terrible fact
that people can become unreachable
while still being alive.

There should be another word for this.

Death is too complete.

This is something else.

This is knowing someone is somewhere
washing their hands,
looking for their keys,
standing in front of an open refrigerator
deciding what they want—

and not knowing
if you cross their mind at all.

And why do I torture myself this way?

As if I cannot see myself in a mirror.

As if I need someone else’s eyes
to tell me I am still here.

I stand in front of myself every morning.

Same face.
Same mouth.

Same body that has carried me
through every terrible thing
I was certain would finish me.

And still,

one person’s silence
can make me question
everything I know about myself.

This embarrasses me.

Not because I loved.

I have never been ashamed of that.

But because I keep returning to the silence
as if it contains an answer.

Was I too much.
Was I not enough.

Was it my body.

Did something in me become disappointing
once it became real.

Look at me.

I want to say this to myself.

Look at yourself.

You have a mirror.

You have lived inside this body
for more than half a century.

You know what it survived.

You know how many times
it had to become yours again.

And still,

I stand there

looking directly at myself

and somehow

I am waiting for someone
who is not here

to tell me

what he sees.