beneath the sound

I was the footsteps behind me

Me who left me alone

I asked for this to be my reason

to tear up this tired road

but I was not even angry

I didn’t really know that voice

So I will own my decisions

I am the one who makes that choice

Sometimes,

I am the dance rising in my toes

I am the coward wailing [in the throes]

I am the one who mistakes love

and willingly accepts the blows

I welcome the blindness when it comes

Inviting the fool who seeks retreat

to false comforts of what he ‘knows’

I am he, and we are simply

discovering we are strong enough

to accept and appreciate

I was the one who let you go

and it was me who hungered

for what was gone

I am the girl you no longer feel

I am the words you don’t hear

I am not the face you see, now

I am older, now, but I am real

Contented in my own skin

Got a taste for living out loud

Breaking me to the light wide open

Here I am again in my soul

Free and with all things, alone

The voice moves through

the thicket again

I am the stillness beneath the sound.

written originally June 1999