handfuls of air

There is a clear sadness that only

falls into the soul in sunlight -

rays through a car windshield,

arriving home, alone again,

in perfect weather without you.

I can't go inside. I stalk

around the nearby park.

If I have to throw everything away

except what I can cram in this car

so I never see this place again,

this storehouse of dying memories,

this lake I circle in shame,

I'll do it.

I go inside my chrysalis.

With weeks, something begins to shift.

Something is finding its center again.

Some object I inhabited

had started to orbit away,

and through tears and time and turbulence

it is now spiraling back into place.

Is it possible one day I will

look back at this heavy moment

surrounding me like silty water

and see it as a skin shed,

lying fragile, translucent,

crumbling under my fingertips?

I have to trust my center.

It must be a whole home.

Otherwise, it won't have the gravity.

I'll break away again, a rogue planet.

In the past, my center was

a chaos uninhabitable.

Now, I feel the heat to burn

everything away inside

except what is cozy.

I can purify my center.

How could another body do that?

A fragile pleasure?

It doesn't stay long enough.

It collapses in on itself,

a black hole, again and again.

Forget religion, language; look to nature.

Stare into its flawless chaos.

Your life is an extension of nature.

Its chaos must be flawless, also.

Now I know

solitude is a purification.

Wait until the flames die

and you'll find gold in the ashes.