by Samantha Paucar
Folded hands at my window
in the black hole of my room at night
eating any light.
Be something, be something, I say to myself and into these hands
I am always trying to be something
Flailing through every space and snatching up people
Their time is stolen into these hands, my own, red as any shame
Any sin that I’ve entertained
Now with my moving lips upon them
White, clean, though barren as tundra.
The harm is all my own doing, my own means to any end.
I can see now, just how
I have been an insatiable child
A silly, dirtied, lost child
Who is so hungry for nothing
whining for something.
I see now, inert but all the more expectant
Suddenly seeing through the window
Into the expansive, the vast and beautiful
Anonymity has lost its humble charm to me.
I can never be nothing
So I persist in the same old pursuit
I cannot sleep because I am not done
So I pour myself out again, the last mist of spirit
Into a new conduit
No part of that boy is any means to my end
I know that already but the aftermath will come as confirmation
I am a child I know not what I say
The aftermath confirms but does not surprise
Cruel satisfaction
I am always right
How precocious of me
All these 20 years
finally something right
Even so, I keep his memory close to remember his eyes upon me
He will cover me in his eyes and his words, once
once more
So that I am aglow
with what is his love
for this hour or less.
It’s not much but it certainly distracts,
from the quiet of the coming nights
I can remember his eyes upon me then.
In this hour or less
I am made perfect in what only now is his love.
Let me sleep in that
In every conduit who tells me I am pretty for a season
telling me what I am, most importantly, just what I could be to them
when all I could ever be is mist
at this hour at least.
What am I?
O’ God what am I?
Eve named every beast but I want You to tell me exactly what You ask of me
O’ God what am I?
Nothing, nothing yet
I can sleep tonight perhaps
Nothing, there’s nothing to earn
Unfolded hands lay still.
Precariously close to this black hole
eating any light.
