Joy: I’ve been side stepping and evading your touch
knowing full well I’m not worthy of your true power.
You’ve sought me out, on occasion, revealing a sense of lightness.
But, what joy could I possibly allow within me following a sister snatched too soon?
She’s not here, nor there. She can’t hear me anymore
because she left me hanging on the other end of the phone on a dark day in late March.
I’m still standing there, 18, wondering, waiting, asking why
in a lifelong one-way conversation.
I talk to her inside my car or in the bathtub
revealing secrets I think she’d want to hear.
She’s not up or down, or in the middle.
Maybe joy is finding a place for her within me.
If I can just stop searching and hold her close
she’ll walk with me forever, taking me by the hand
and whispering it’s finally time to let myself feel.
One-way conversation
