Stand up straight,
stop overthinking your longing.

That hunger is a part of this human body,
written into our blood like
red and blue tattoos.

Reach for the door, say the things;
don’t ask anyone to make it easy for you.

In fact, when someone makes it hard, say,
Thank you mama! You give my longing a direction,
a channel of challenges through which to carry

 
this innate bundle of heart-feels.
Feed it with addictions

to things and people and behaviors,
but they won’t take away
the loneliness.

Lonely
is what this life is.

Lonely
is the contract we made
as water agreeing to stand

in a cloak of flesh
for eighty years

to move
and explore
and carry the unseen

into the light.

~ Julia Daye