Sometimes I write, and it makes such perfect sense; to me, to someone else – other times, I wonder. I used to rid myself of all the words I wasn’t certain sense or clarity could be found in, but then I mourned them and I searched for them, digging up their invisible grave sites and attempting to resurrect them in some semblance of what they once were, but they were never the same again so I stopped. I stopped crumpling the pages they were written on, I stopped scratching them out with the ink they were created with. I stopped deleting them and let them breathe.

I let them exist.

Some of them are hidden safely away, some are locked in invisible cages, and some simply roam free – sometimes I let people see them, sometimes I visit them in the deepest and darkest part of night. Most stay silent, content to be wherever they are, but others call out, cry out – begging to be released. Sometimes I consider it. Maybe one day I’ll set the captives free.

The words I find the need to hide are most often the ones that come to me when the sun has been settled long enough for night to erase any memory of it, when it blankets even the stars in ebony embrace. Tonight is one of those nights and so many words are whispering, I find myself wondering if they are mine or if I am theirs. The thought crosses my mind – I have it all wrong, they are my captors.

I am bound by letter and verse, by sonnet and chapter – a prisoner without plan nor desire for escape.

And so the night and the words are mine and I belong to them. When the morn comes and the light of day rouses me from what little sleep I was allowed, I wonder what they will say, those words I kept company with as I dreamed outside of a dream, waiting for the darkness to fade . . .

I long to be

unapologetically –

wholly, perfectly,

and simply

     me,

  but . . .

it seems at times

I forget to remember

where the me has gone

within the person that I am.

I like her

     I do,

but sometimes . . .

she is a stranger

or instead,

I am a stranger to her.

I can’t completely be certain

so I am left to wonder

and wander.

We play hide and seek

the her and the I,

we pretend to be friends

and sometimes,

     we are,

it depends on who’s *it*.

It seems to me

we should be one,

of thought

of mind

of inner everything,

     but . . .

and maybe this is crazy –

we are separate,

the her and the I.

Did I fracture?

or was it she?

Splinters of self,

branches on the same tree,

perchance it is meant to be,

the her and the me,

growing together,

separately,

     as one.

Crystal R. Cook