You are nothing but materials for burning
—Dorothy Walters
I wanted to be
somebody, not
just somebody
but somebody
wonderful and
preferably thin.
I wanted to be
somebody loved
and loving, someone
worth listening to,
someone fun, and
for forty two years
I built her into
a me, but she
is just a heap
of labels, a pile
of shoulds, a
list of pretty knowns
and fueling the one
who wants, there
is the one who is.
“It’s all just grist for the mill.” -anonymous(?)
“…and fueling the one who wants, there is the one who is.” This collective that comprises the individual…. Evoking yesterday’s poem: it’s messy. “I wanted to be…somebody wonderful…but [I(?) am] just a heap of labels…” Such disconnect between wants and reality, perceptions and truth. Quoting Indigo Girls: Darkness has a hunger than’s insatiable/and lightness has a call that’s hard to hear. Too often, we’re looking to intensely for a specific something to see what other wonders are displayed for our viewing. We cast our own darkness, missing what’s obvious in the light of another, new day.
Well, lookit here. Seems to have struck a nerve, this poem. Isn’t that at least some of why we write; why we send it out into the world?
How curious, that title — moth. I read the poem and then go back to the title and think, how interesting, “preferably thin” — I like it, because it reads vulnerability to me. And transformation. That Walters quote is perfect.