Sit at the desk of inspiration and it will come.  And I ignore them. Another hour turns into a month and I am disappointed in the lack of motivation.  I make time run through my fingers by blowing on the sand to make it move faster, yelling at it to stop.  I ran my life off course so I could be someone.  So I could follow a dream that came to me on a whim.  I allow myself to doubt, and to wait, and to make excuses for it to never happen.

With blood on my hand I turn around and accuse the shadow of tripping me.  My shadow, my secret, my inability to believe in myself.  The world is quiet tonight under a blanket of misplaced snow.  The sound of falling flakes is the echo of silence.  While I brush my teeth I run sentences through my head, seeing the letters jump to life and then.  Then I am blank.  I am not the first to walk the steps of a new dream, but I am the first me to take a deep breath and sigh the anguish of my life.  I don’t know where to start, but I do.  My bones know how.  My heart knows how. It is my head that wasn’t chosen first for the dodgeball team.  My brain thinks so hard so often that my heart is left out of the bray.

Inspiration comes in a waterfall that cannot be contained by misused keys, misspellings and backups.  My heart cries out to be exalted in words and I ignore the call.  Because I don’t know how to step out of line and shout ahead to let the world know I am here.  I am here.  Someone please turn around and hear me.  Put the stepping stone in front of me and I will walk; if I can see I can step.  If I can hear I can trust.  If you catch my eye I am safe.

As a child I had a recurring dream.  I was always laying in my little twin bed, with the foot facing the door.  A jar of change heavily holding the door open.  The light of my parent’s room glowing on the hallway walls.  He was a big dark shadow and he was taking the jar and moving it, so my door would close and I’d be alone in the dark.  I would yell but no sound would come out.  No one would hear me.  And then I would wake up and the house was dark and no one was awake but me.  Repeating dreams of houses full of people; I was standing on the stairs trying to get someone’s attention to help.  I couldn’t yell because it would catch his attention so I begged with my eyes. Pleaded someone to see me, to follow my head nod that I needed help.  But no one looked up.  I was alone in the dark and helpless. A sea of people unseeing and deaf to my pleads of desperation and fear. I wandered through the rooms of my heart and tried to get someone’s attention.  Remaining unseen.  Unable to make a sound.  Sweat and a pounding heart wakes me and I am alone in my room.  Always alone.

Dreams of forever love and never being alone follow me everywhere I go.  Maybe this time I won’t be left out.  Maybe this time someone will see me and stay forever in my light.  Staring at the clouds that move on a breeze of time I am passing through my life.  Laughter; clouds of joy follow me and live my steps as a fragile caste around my smile.  Dissipating in the exhale on a winter day; you cannot capture the fleeting.  But you can hold the image in your heart forever.  I will never be able to forget what it feels like to inhale a cold night and exhale the breath of hope. I am whole and perfect and complete.  My dreams haven’t caught up with me.  But my words have.   The tears of raw purity sting my cheeks and I know I am alive.  I step out of line and yell ahead.  I hear my voice like crystal against the wall.  Everyone turns and looks at me in surprised wide open eyes.  I have their attention and my dreams disappear.  Now what do I say?

I say what has always been on the cusp of my knowing.  I am important and I have something to speak.  Listen up crooked streets and jagged peaks; I am sifting a new story into your hearts.  Can you hear the murmur of truth coming through the veil?  I can.  By the look on your face I know you can too.  Brilliant, isn’t it?  Absolutely brilliant.  A ship stopped in its tracks today. And I am the iceberg that pushed against its hull and said: not this time you don’t.  This time I am in charge.  I flex my muscles and turn the boat around and face it in the direction I want to go.  Take me to the ends of the earth, I command.  And slowly I feel the gentle rocking of the ocean underneath.  Casually I feel the momentum of the current that moves gracefully through the blue-green waters of today like an afterthought.  The fish tickle my toes and the whales of the deep escort the herd.  My fins move effortlessly with the flow of creation.  The saltines stings my flesh alive; the phosphorescence buoying my every hope.  Today I am the waves.  Today I am the sea.  Today I am alive.