Left Out
       

              Some of us no longer have names. We spread out our ashes and let rain soak what's left of them into the Earth. Spared when our nerve endings are snipped, all our feelings scatter. While one end's sprouting green from the hidden insides of every life form, the other's sinking vertical pits miles deep into the Earth as a way of sucking crude oil up from its unlit black pools. For the first time we feel apart, separated not by differences but dimensions, not by barriers but brain waves, not by colors but innuendos. Unused to this, our reach towards each other mimics the difference between us. What we'd like to do is drop to our knees, shrink quickly in size and once again travel along zig-zagging tunnels mice cut through winter's frozen grasses under new fallen snow. A shame our footsteps trample the path along which we should be scampering. A shame we lose track of each other, remembering there's no one to ask, no one who has a clue as to the time or whereabouts of our unification. Our only hope is what happens to one of us happens to the other. That we'll be provided a much better place to live, in more than just a human universe.

Tweet
Copyright © 2021 Paul B. Roth All rights reserved
from The Bitter Oleander
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission