A Natural Creature

These empty months, these careful steps taken, keeping distance. 

All of this is taking a toll. 

I feel like my life has shrunk. I have a shrunken head. 

I am less than I was. And yet my hunger is greater. 

I feel thirsty and hungry, all the time. 

Have I been in a desert alone—hot sand on my feet, my long robe whispering as I moved slowly, carefully like a snake—belly down as close to the earth as possible. 

I must stay down. This is the final test. 

Can I be dry and empty? Charmless? No light reflecting back. 

No reassurance that I am a human being traveling on a planet shared with millions of others. 

I have been a solitary traveler, my belly down, my charm reduced to dust, my body a container, yet uncontaining. 

Can I transform the air around me into water? Some desert plants can do that. 

All the promise…dry… crumbling. 

Under my outstretched fingers, my bones feel parched. 

They looked like ancient whale bones washed on the shore, parched in the sun, abandoned on the sand—left to inspire an artist— sucked of life—a curve in time.

If I learned to live like this, a shard of bone, a wizened snake— will light shine in?  

Will secrets be revealed?  

Will I discover layers of what I could have been— beyond quick words, fleeting glances, beyond solving the problem, saving the day? 

Are there layers of gold? 

The real deal?

I can stop now. Sit on the hot, dry sand. Stop. Close my eyes. Smell rain.

Imagine rose petals falling on my skin…like a kiss. 

My cells open like a sunflower, 

like a natural creature.

Written on June 25, 2020