sometime wishes

I don't often write a title first
But tonight
the wishes are in control

I feel things burning in me
a fire crushing thick wood
sloughing away layers
as snakes shed their skins
old and dead and small giving way to another one
to burn that away, too, in time...

I'd like a crow bar
to wrench open my chest
to show the world
the way that pain and strength
mingle on the dance floor of my soul

I am broken and lonely and lost
and a voice, tinier than I would like
whispers that I can get through

Mostly I remember that once upon a time
I was outside
and someone reached out to me
someone offered me a hug
someone listened to me
someone touched me and melted things
too long frozen

If only our raw and beating hearts
could search out each other
leaving behind hollow bodies
to find ways to crawl out of the lumbering
muck, inch our way to something
brighter, drier, cooler, soothing

And like homing pigeons
crimson and dripping
the hearts would return
to tell us that our secret
silent sometime wishes
have been answered.