I used to have it, the longing
to be cleaned out, to become
like the school room before
the students arrive on the first day
of school—the desks polished,
the dry erase board perfectly white,
no un-erasable traces of old problems
and schedules and conjugations.
I longed to be even cleaner than that—
to be emptied. To be like the room
without furniture. Or perhaps even
to be like the vacant lot after
the building had been torn down.
Call it a second chance. Or a third.
A clean slate. We have so many ways
to speak of starting over. And of course
I believed I’d do it all better this time.
And then one day I stopped believing
in the sanctity of the eraser. What
great teachers, all these perfect failures.
One day I could feel it, how
the life I wanted to live was nowhere
near as beautiful, as full, as rich
the life that wants to live me.