echo chamber

On maps Michigan
Is the shape of a mitten.
As our van drives away
I catch a glimpse of the yarn
Unraveling,
Revealing what I was unprepared
To see.
The hidden hand
Never stops waving goodbye.

Years later,
Sitting in the back of a pick-up truck,
You tell me I'm resilient.
Driving away, dirt roads,
From a village
That also is not home.
For years I hold
That word in my hands
Hoping it will echo-
Dance.
I want to be like the moutains.
I could always pick out the point
Of one, especially jagged.
Always wanted to be that peak-
The one to be noticed.

But then, behind the curtain,
Waiting to go on stage
I'm sick, uncertain.
The pills slow my heart-
Deaden its motion.
Shaking or waving,
I can't tell which-
They steady my hands,
Knit yarn around them.
Over and over and over again
I walk through flames
To get to the spotlight-
Have the scars on my feet to prove it.
After my short moment in the sun
You clap, the lights go out,
And the war is won.

Dark-
Drunk with praise,
I tend to the wounds.
Learn to equate love
With bruise.
Learn to empty myself
For you.
Coax acid up my throat
For you.
Learn to crave
The hollow-
Prerequisite
For an echo.

When I was a kid,
Taping pages together,
I imagined myself an author.
Now those pages
Are my echo chamber.
My thoughts spilled ink
Bouncing back to me
In letters written,
Woven into words
Reverberating.
I'm trying to empty the pen
Instead of myself.
Feel the blood pulsing
And not cringe at my own heartbeat,
My own motion.

Years later,
You move away again
And this time I do not feel it.
Too heavy, too full here
To be dragged along.
Instead
I set up fort.
I put on mittens
Hands steady,
Still hidden.
And the chamber echoes back-
Resilient.