Places of Safety

Why are they so hard

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.)