It is the lack of infatuation in the present
that keeps me recalling the desire and despair
that constructed my growth and spirit,
that breathed life into the design of my being.
I covet the feelings I sensed when I was initially brought into awareness,
when everything was vivid and not dulled by the stretch of maturity
that seems to dim fascination, obsession, and desire
to a place of practicality, rationality.
Emotions were once tangible, hefty, and altered my trajectory.
Reality can extinguish the youthful fire in a soul,
but for me the flames are not completely snuffed out.
They’re just eclipsed by the passage of time,
the dryness of familiarity and routine.
The sorceress inside me often strokes the ashes
so my mind can return to the place I haven’t completely abandoned.
There is no finality in my distance.
My intensity hasn’t been discarded.
The earliest version of myself is emaciated,
her fervor no longer vibrant, but not fully dissolved.
She’s a dull cluster of grays that once resembled color,
dormant, passive, comatose. Lingering.
The tediousness of the ordinary,
my restlessness with complacency,
arouses my return to the era of my bloom.