Boundaries

There was a time when my skin was an oppressive wall

Keeping me from dissolving into you.

When I wanted more than to feel every inch of you--

To be inside of you, body and mind

--But to be you, the mind and the thoughts themselves, myself,

To take away the boundaries, and become the same person.

The only way I could depend

on you To not destroy me.

And then one evening, years later,

After the mid day tears,

After being held up In the the street like a puppet,

when I could not stand the volume of my grief,

I stood in my kitchen over a stove, stomach full of anxious

brooding, wishing Someone would take it for me,

The volumous heft of chatter,

And I thought, I shall feel it all

Now, I think I will let the body do its job

And the mind its only holy task

Of noticing what is true

right now.

That’s all that happened

but for the breathing over rice and beans.

Then the boundary was my skin again.

not to shut the world out

Or to offer you a hand

But to make a home for goosebumps, the growing

surface area.