CALL ME BELOVED

Since I learned about the inner child,
supposedly lingering inside of us –
I think I’ve got a body bag instead of a soul.
At least, you tell me, doc
I haven’t heard any signs of life,
have you? Does anybody cry out,
a familiar, small voice echoing down
each lonely hall of your heart
when you listen to the darkness
late at night?

I don’t hear echoes. It’s quiet.
Silence isn’t deafening – when I map
the topography of the bedroom ceiling,
keeping time by the steady rush of blood
thrumming past my ear drums while
(I thought) I wonder, alone –

Are you in there, inner child?
Are you just watching, quietly?
Staring out my eyes like car windows,
how I watched the world from the backseat
growing up, alone in my thoughts
trying to be unheard, unseen, like
if you could make yourself small enough
maybe we could disappear.

We never did figure out
where things go when they vanish
but I remember our aching hope, maybe
it could be better than here.

Since I’ve learned about grief,
surprise, rogue waves crashing
choking heavy on your chest, or
how the pain is just love, unspent
with nowhere else to go – it means
inner child, I must love you
like the earth loves the sun.

It’s easy to forget
this is all part of it –
warmth can come back again.
The break of dawn, the tidal waves,
none of it lasts.
It’s easy to forget
how impossible, how wonderful
to watch the sunrise,
to drown, at all

So, you aren’t dead. Sometimes, things
can just go cold. No body bag soul;
the sun must set, it’s easy to forget
once shadows creep down the tree lines,
when webs of frost spread through the grass
how impossible, how wonderful
to feel at all