A fuller heart

"So I leave this morning with empty hands, and somehow a fuller heart."

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"It's ruinous for the soul to be anxious about the future and miserable in advance of misery."
- Seneca

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This morning,
an oracle answered
in the language
of absence.

I tucked the silence away,
small enough to disappear
inside a pocket,
yet somehow
heavy enough
to alter the way
my hands hung beside me.

I stepped into it
barefoot,
expecting celebration,
and instead discovered
a silence
large enough
to hear my own heart
asking questions
I had not invited.

Relief
is a bewildering bird.
It lands
with grateful wings,
then leaves behind
feathers that look
almost exactly like grief.

I laughed,
a little.
I breathed,
a little deeper.
My body
only a body.
The future,
merciful.

How cruel,
to stand at the threshold
of a door
you never wished to open,
and still mourn
the sound of it
closing.

Not because
you longed
to cross it.
Only because
the hallway beyond
had briefly reminded you
that one day,
perhaps,
this might be home.

Please let the key be there
when I reach for it again.

You listened
as though fear
were not foolish,
only frightened.

Promising I won’t stand alone.

So I leave
this morning
with empty hands,
and somehow
a fuller heart.

And yet,
I find myself hoping
that one day,
when the years have grown calmer,
when the house is warmer,
when the roots have deepened,
there might be laughter
floating down a hallway.

Small shoes by a doorway.
Stories read aloud
beneath yellow lamplight.
A pair of your eyes
appearing unexpectedly
in another face.

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Can’t I really not just stay in bed forever?