farewell... to the old me

but there's a catch-- i can't bring myself to see
who i am, and i sense that's because
i'm not entirely sure who i am
these days, especially compared to who i've been
for the last almost three years. and i've come into my own
more than ever, but i've been thwarted and suffocated
beneath layers of lust-fed love (lust that was
flotsam on her stripped floorboards: the first to go
overboard when there was no room left to breathe).
i've been misled and tangled. and she said she lost herself
but she never had herself. i did.
and i haven't relocated the lost fragments yet.

but this is all part of the process and there is space to fall
to realign and trip and repose. i am with no one but myself.
no one's rules but my own. no mind to challenge but my own,
no muscles to flex but the ones i've lately neglected. and the thing is:
i don't want anyone else's anything in my everything. i just want
me.

so the search begins for the roots
of who i am. and strength supercedes the will to look back,
a sinewed stretch forward instead. this is what
i have: mind, body, soul.
education: completed and continuing.
career: a job, multiple certificates, summers off, opportunities elsewhere.
family: solid. supportive. inspiring. fucking funny.
friends: waxy but tangible. some closer, some better,
some here just for distraction and entertainment.
car & home. solitude. space to live.
words to craft, words to refine.
my health.
my will and tenacity. my inherant stubborn nature.
my easy smile and (over)active mind.
and i have my own possibility: endless, unmapped, uncharted, infinite.

i basked in beautiful noise last night. i'd marry the former in a
heartbeat... the curved beauty, incredible voice, obvious and endearing
slightly self-deprecating humor. and she carries a slightly surreal
resemblance to the woman who has blindly carried the pulse of my heart
for close to three years.

there are moments, too few for my liking, where i realize that
i am exactly where i am supposed to be. unattached. healing.
deeply introspective (perhaps too much at times).
rolling in intensity. fumbling to rediscover myself.
aware. awake. shaken, stirred, overflowing.
real. selfish. spiked with shards of happiness
mixed with stripes of anger/disbelief/sadness/hurt.
recovering. breathing. inhale, exhale, close your eyes.
unravelling neatly and retying with each step and signal.

i'll get where i need to be. it may not be where i think i should go
but it will be where i'm supposed to be, and when i'm supposed
to be there.
that's all i know.