Chaosity

A Poem

The universe is a messy bedroom
But I can finally see the floor
Pulling the plug on the fluorescent hum
Watching salt-stained days
Collapse into the rearview
There is something holy in leaving
A map drawn in the dirt on your fender
Saying the wreckage was the compass

Clocking out of the small talk
Punch-cards of how-are-yous
The quiet theft of 40 hours a week
To drive toward the kind of beauty
That never apologizes for having thorns
Trees don’t ask for permission
To grow as tall as they can

There is no one behind the curtain
No stunt doubles to take the fall
When the mountain air hits the lungs like a punch
I am the one bleeding. The one breathing
The one standing on the edge
Without a safety net or a backup plan

I can’t shrink my shoulders
To fit into rooms filled with people
Who are afraid of the volume of my heart
There’s no use for a complex to tell me
I am anything less than a storm
Not an omission
A full sentence
The bold type
Ink that doesn’t dry

Chaos didn’t break the window
It lets the light in
To show where the treasure is hidden
I head for the wild
Where the only thing I have to be
Is a person who showed up
To live her life