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I did not realize
how scared I had become
until I found myself sitting
inside the dark room,
content to call by memory
the setting sun
and draw it burnished gold
with the naivety of a child.
In my mind I can picture the hands
that have held me too tight
along my journey forward,
so that each step was first
an explanation, then a defense,
and finally a compromise;
so that each step
was but the same step
dug a little deeper;
so that each step
placed me downward,
farther into the ground.
But it is my own delicate wrist
whose insipid bird flutter
draws continually the round,
cold Crayola colored sun
which pains me
the most.
- coleen houlihan
