(someone)

I wish I had
somebody to talk
to, somebody
who actually wanted
to hear what
I have to say.
Who cared how
cold the house
feels, how threatening
the wind is just
now.
Someone who would
allay my worries
about the furnace
filter, the dead
tree branches,
your neglected boxes
gathering in the room.

I wish, not that they
had the answers,
but would only
allow me to ask.
To vent the doubt
that disturbs
my sleep, if left
unvented.
My great resistance
to being in consort
with uncertainty.
The weight I feel
because I do not
know if what I’m
doing is the right
thing to be doing,
when what I’m
doing is undoing
what I have already
done. What I have
done with so much
struggle and effort.
With trying stacked
to the very top of it.
Taking away the
natural impulse,
constraining it within
punctuation.
Line breaks that
made life easier
for the reader,
but not for me.
When what I am
doing is going back
to where I’ve
already been,
but thought I had
to train myself out of.

I do not know
if what I am doing
is the right thing
to be doing,
when what I am
doing is undoing
what I have
already done.
But I am happier
doing what I am
doing, undoing
what I have done,
because I had
undone my
doing,
which is rather
like undoing
who you are.

I wish someone
had been there
to recognize
the signs,
to say to me
what are you
doing, undoing
what you do?
I think then
I would feel more
easy now
undoing what
I have done.

2/11/99