Leaving Walls

     I feel like I should have something profound, or at least interesting, to say about the following two prose poems. But really, whatever's worthwhile to communicate I've already said in the pieces themselves. Please take from them what you need today.

                           LEAVING

     whenever I show up I'm also leaving    there's a gaping hole of no-longer-me left behind somewhere    birth was like that    what an exodus!    but did I have a choice?    since then I've been expelled bloody and squalling from womb after womb    leaving and arriving    two different sides of the same coin    when you find me tossed dumbstruck between grief and joy    you'll know I just lost one world and discovered another

    looking back it seems every moment's been a step in a dance of leaving    even now    though we're so close we almost breathe a single breath    some part of me's already three fourths gone    the pull of the horizon!    the tang of the unknown!    like a shark I must thrust forward or I'll die    leaving's how I experience birth and death simultaneously    I realize I'm never static but a sort of dreaming river    my vector's forever changing as I flow

     leaving's moving on but also leaving behind    one day you'll read this illuminated by the void of my absence    yet right now I'm pouring my whole being into these words    I'm taking your hand in mine with these words    I'm gazing deep into your eyes through these words    so leaving's letting go but also holding dear    I'm leaving you to enter a wormhole in the night    I'm leaving you this tracing of my soul

                                ***

     Most of us are living inside a maze of dividing and constricting walls. It's time for them to come down.

                             WALLS

     I think of an old stone wall in a field at night    it's like some long low creature scarcely breathing    the crickets don't seem alarmed though    now and then a bat flits and dives noiselessly above    these stones set apart grass from grass    dark from dark    space from space    I wish more walls were this humble    mottled with gaps and holes where starlight finds passage    I wish more walls were chastened by time    rendered harmless and beautiful

     I didn't know I was born into a labyrinth of invisible walls    they were all around me and some where already inside me but I didn't know    all I knew was a shadow blocking where the light came from    and the unappeasable wailing of a thing abandoned    a thing imprisoned and desolate    trained by this harsh curriculum I learned to construct my own walls    I became a world-class prodigy at walling out    and walling in

     but I'm finished with that now    "Tear down the walls!" is my new mantra and I don't apologize    tear down the walls cementing primal wounds to fresh horrors    tear down the walls dividing the kiss from the lips and the lover from the beloved    tear down the walls that shut minds    petrify hearts    blight souls    tear down the walls which command us to believe we're anything except    One

                               ***