Her

The steps I retrace
The mistakes I remember in a daze
Memories trapped and sealed in closed jars
All those words that stain the walls of my brain
Of loss and regrets
Tears that never did well down
Shallow quivers in my voice they could not tell
And shaky hands as I tried to push ahead

Definitions are hard
For so long I was a shadow of things that have happened to me
Things I saw and understood
Things I made myself suffer and do
Decisions I took
And all the consequences I lived through
The people I gathered and lost along the way
Who made me think and smile and cry
Face my truths and live my dreams
I called myself – a reflection if you will
A reflection of all of them until
Until one day I simply decided that I am not
I am not my choices
Not my job
Not the people around me
Not even my family
And certainly not my past

So I decided to stop
To stop running
To stop defending myself
To stop living this perception they have of me
Stop doing what they thought was the right thing
All of these people
This mountain of things and realities around me
Closing in on me
And yet,
Not one close enough to even graze the surface of my soul
Close enough to care
Close enough to matter anyway
1 – 2 – 3 – steps to a good life, I let them all go
I decided to break order and embrace this hot molten mess of chaos inside me
I decided to just be

I am now trying to be her instead
The girl who cared
Who was blown away by music and sang for days
The girl who read like she needed to know everything
Stood up for herself and was called too rude for a child
The girl who believed Papa was the tallest of all
And Mother could be a movie star – she is perfection still
Who carried the Oxford dictionary in case she needed a word
And skipped parts of books that hurt
Asked strangers about their lives and wives
The one who sat alone in the corner thinking about gravitational forces
I’m trying to be that girl who believed
Who cared about neighborhood cats
And what happened to the books when the bookstore flooded
The girl who lived out so loud
And loved so fiercely that it hurt
Said honest words that stung
And somehow still nurtured in her heart
This unwavering faith in things and people and everything around.

It has been years, I tell you
Since we met and sat down and spoke about the universe and music and the Halley’s comet
Took a walk down the memory lane
Clichéd I know
But God it has been so long !
I have been reaching out to her now and then
Steering through these cluttered lanes of my head as often as I can
Taking detours
Stopping
Reminiscing
But moving
I am, in whatever little ways I can
Trying to go back to being her instead.