to find
to maintain
There I have been
times
seasons
when there were several
Places of safety
Places of acceptance
Places of love
Where I was and felt loved
For who I was
and in that place
In those seasons
there was freedom to flesh out
the worst of me
and somehow
also be and become
the best of me
there was a "flourishing" to life
But those times and places
are so fleeting
There might be one
and then one day I realize
it is gone
It might happen through a specific problem
But more often
it just happens
The relationship fades
Or maybe just the active cultivating has faded
and at some point
I realize
How quickly life
and the "atmosphere"
can change
from safety
to
lack
And then
so many things eem to happen,
none of them fully true
or fully an expression of the reality
but pieces of
being lost, directionless
pulling inside myself
building walls, hiding behind them
running, in all the ways I run
And while I watch it happening
not liking it while it does
often a lesser me
lives in this world.
(Another...in drafts, rediscovered May 30, 2018, and posted then. Maybe the distance of time makes it more 'safe' to post.)
