knees to my chest heart palpating was all i could feel

in sync with the lift of the wheels

every few seconds i had to remind myself;

every inch onward was real

in the middle of the night on a train into the unknown

manifest destiny at my fingers tips was where i felt at home.

who will i be,

where will i go,

what faces will i soon come to know.

i think about it all,

why i couldn’t stay,

i think about why i run

why my wisdom suffocates making me no fun

why to be seventy years wise makes words

sound like a generational curse

but i always think about that sliver

the golden chapter that gave me

hope

that makes me quiver

where it felt like the fates aligned

my stubbornness met its match

my demons and darkness didn’t have to hide

and when it was lost

a part of me never came back

i’ve tried on different masks

and shed different tears

for the lives i have lived over the years

but that sliver in that book

that golden chapter that gave me hope

ill never forget what it took

to be so easy and so mad

to reconcile and in the same breath

to laugh

and find reasons to be glad

that sliver was sacred to me.

to know what it meant to care and love

so deeply,

so free

the poetic pieces of me want to believe

to know my worth is the key

intertwining that with the world is connected

and bigger than me.

so on that train i go

knees to my chest heart palpating was all i could feel

in sync with the lift of the wheels

every few seconds i had to remind myself;

every inch onward was real

in the middle of the night on a train into the unknown

manifest destiny at my fingers tips was where i felt at home.