The Poem

There was a poem on my bedroom wall

It was about outer space and being in love

Erotic in the way that only metaphors can be

I would read it in a rush

Holding my breath until the last line

And then I would read it again

Because it was a perfect thing

And as many times as I let my eyes linger over the words

I could not get enough of it

And I told you how I had always wanted someone

To write to me 

To turn me 

Into poetry

This was my proverbial writing on the wall

A prayer that told me what would be

Later you told me it was no longer mine

That you were in love with your own mind

That it was written for an idea

Which I had failed to live up to

Your eyes damned me to this 

As if I had chosen to be something other

Than what you imagined and now

I would live forever as the one who could have been

All you wanted

If only I had tried harder

I watched you cast about for another rug to pull out

I saved you the trouble

I took a step back and fell

Plummeting from the plateau where I had perched with you

Where you had instructed me to build another stair

Where the magic had turned to sand sifting through my fingers

Leaving me holding a familiar skeleton key

Which opens a door I had forgotten

So I fall

Backwards

With a splash into my Self

The water closes over my head and the voice

Which tells me I am not enough

That I am not who I am supposed to be

Becomes muffled and then recedes

This lake waited at my heels again

A step away

To baptize me in the guise of one 

Who sees only through her own eyes