CALL ME BELOVED

I’ve been keeping secrets from myself, shards and gems
accidentally kicked out from underneath my mental leaf-piles.
instinct tells me I must have kept them secret for a reason,
especially if hidden from myself – so I don’t look. casually
I drag my foot and they are swept from view.

but I want to look. it’s instinctual – the growing book pile
shows the weekly casualties of all the text I’ve consumed.
my need to know is reflexive and insatiable and exists
entirely outside of a need for a ‘what,’ I just must know
and the knowledge has yet to better me in any tangible way.

maybe it’s the secrets I’m looking for – buried too well inside
but surely they must exist elsewhere, stumbled upon by some
other poor desolate case who was braver than I, enough so
to etch it out onto the pages – maybe the very same that
I have on tomorrow’s slate, a revelation in waiting.