I don't know what I feel.
I don't know who,
or what I like.
I just know,
that I do not feel
the embers,
I am blind to the spark -
The light
I think back on that time,
To that shallow kiss
I know that it was warm.
I know that it was nice.
Hell, I was on cloud nine.
But the moment passed.
And the butterflies were...sparse.
Was it him or me?
Was I just too slow?
Or he too fast for me?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I just...
don't know.
Three or four years
have gone since then,
And I still wonder why
Then I remember -
That wasn't the only time
There had been others before
We had courted,
And I was always wishing
I were elsewhere
Trying to spring forth
All of those feelings -
To lay my heart bare
...but they just weren't there
I still feel like the moth
With no flame
My heart,
In a state of decay
Now and then there is a stutter -
A flutter
Of something
I try to hold it -
But it just flies away
You may as well smear me
Across that windowpane
There are terms now
for what I could be,
The letters "A" and "D"
might feel like me
But I won't say a thing -
Not a peep
Not 'til I'm sure,
Until I'm really sure,
of what makes my heart truly sing
There's a pressure,
a quiet, constant hum
To know
who and what I am
They ask when
Not if I'll marry,
Bare children -
And start a family
Well let's just say,
That I'll not tarry,
To find a way
Out of the charade
Motherhood never spoke to me
It seems a cage -
Agony
I've only ever wished
to be free
Free to inspire,
To create
To ponder
Free to roam,
To dream
To learn
If only I knew the secret
For what makes me burn
But maybe it's okay
Not to know
Maybe I'm still blooming—
Unfolding slow, unseen
In the dark, I find
I do not cower
Instead, I glow -
I, the moonflower.
I will not blaze,
In the ways they expect
I will not leave entrails in the sky
But I still reach -
Only quiet,
and deliberate -
For the stars in the night
For why
Late-blooming questions and quiet reaching.
A reflection on identity, uncertainty, and learning to grow in my own way.
