After Tea
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there. - Rumi
After our tea is cool enough to drink
but not before it is gone
we discuss my problem:
My words, they are like snakes
that are hard to pin down.
My ideas slide away from people’s
ears when I try to get them in.
In short: no one is having a good time.
Later, in my bed,
I feel the situation inside me
like chickens loud in a barn.
I see myself now as you described:
a mostly tolerable clown.
The hair on my neck stands up.
I am tempted to believe you.
I am tempted to take your eyes into my eyes
And just agree this time.
I am tempted to let the feeling live:
let the isolation eat me,
this tight throated sensation that I am
trapped in a long hallway with no doors.
Somewhere inside my body
a friend opens the first thing she can find.
She lets me into the cool, dark place with the stars.
I try to find the border in here
where the universe is expanding all the time.
What if I am right, I say to the dark.
What if there is very little difference between anyone?
What if I am just one shape in an 8 billion piece puzzle?
So what if it takes thousands
and thousands of years to find where I belong?
I am still whole.
I am still in the river that runs.
What if I am right, I want to say to you
What if it is beautiful to feel the same as everyone?
To not just notice difference all the time?
What if, on this occasion,
my inner eyes are not blind?
The tea, however, has already been drunk
and you are gone. In your own home,
I am not a thought in your mind.
You don’t know that I will talk to you all night
or that I have been speaking to the cosmic you
since we met the first time.
I shake in your direction.
A rosebush quivers
when the wind comes by.
Can you hear me?
I’m not giving up on my own body.
We are not giving up on our own minds.
Liz Bruno is a public servant in Oregon. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, ISLE, The Coachella Review, the Cape Rock, Euphony Journal, Roast Magazine, Montana Magazine, and more.
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