One day last week, I woke up with a line of verse in my head. It didn’t go anywhere, but it also didn’t go away. For days, any time my mind was at a lull, the line would float back up to the surface. I wrote it down, stared at it, willed it to continue on into another line. Frustratingly, it did not oblige.
But experience told me that if there is power in one line, then it’s worth waiting for the rest to take shape. Last night, something clicked. I’m not much for defining something as good or not good, but I am for taking pride in something you patiently nurtured into being. I’m also trying to get more comfortable with the idea of sharing what I write, because I have a tendency to be guarded when I should be more open.
I’m not sure that it’s finished (whatever that may mean), but I’m content with where it is at the moment.
The dawn is a blinking cursor
Some days I am almost a bird.
It is a becoming,
a certain of-ness,
a craning of the neck that glides
into an unintentional alert nod
over a tilted shoulder.
I startle easily.
There is something so natural
about the rush of blood,
thumping chest pushing back
against the constraints of skin.
As if the sudden intake of breath
were just an extension
of the wind.
But also I wonder at times if
what I want is a conscious choice,
and if that choosing is mine entirely,
or just a reflex wired through
the half-awareness of my
avian heart.
Positively Natalie 