Time

I just need time.

A chance to step back and remember,

Remember how to breathe.

I’m that kind of girl who wants desperately to fly,

Yet sits on the edge of the cliff for awhile,

Kicking legs in empty air and imagining the feel of the jagged rocks.

It’s been desperate, most days.

Clinging on has left me aching,

My knuckles white and my fingertips red with my own blood.

I’ve been afraid.

Afraid of falling, afraid of dying, afraid of being alone,

Afraid that the flying will only take me to another obstacle to overcome.

I just need time, I say, as it whirls past me like a hurricane,

As growing up engulfs me like a tidal wave.

Time to sort things out,

Time to make things right,

Time to unmake messes and erase mistakes,

And for goodness sake, time to do my hair and tie my shoes.

Yet as I stare into the depths of this gaping cliff,

I realize that this time, it is not time that I need after all.

I need abandon. Surrender. Letting go.

I need nothing that I can gain by holding on,

Nothing that the world can offer me,

Not time or money or a car or any of the things that I am afraid of losing,

If I let go of them.

I need none of those things.

I need what is in this abyss, this hole, this blackness that seems so bleak.

I need the altar that demands me to lie down on it.

To give and give and give and become fully empty,

That I might be filled.

So I’ll let go, trusting that if I dash against the rocks,

You have only broken my bones to bind them up.