Finally, my insides

James Bowden

Remember the night we watched Inside Out?
I was a small bird, scared, shaken. You held me
in your cupped palms and spoke softly to me.
Kissed my forehead. Let me disappear into the
corner of the walls, your twin bed. I didn’t know
how to cry then, but if I had, I would have. I didn’t
know how to love then, but I did. When morning came,
you didn’t know what to do with me and I didn’t
want to leave the peace, your embrace. A flash
of something I couldn’t yet place.

If I could now, I would have stopped running,
right there, in that moment, with you.

From hundreds of miles upstate, I remember
and I am rent but it is something and I smile.
Past sweetness is suggestion that still
more will come, that I will not live in the cold for ever.
Forgive me, not knowing how to surrender.
I grow tired now and surrender becomes me. By
which I mean to say, I’m ready.

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This is a small edit distance away from “smallness study #1”.