On Wholeness, in Lonely Company

Is this it? Is this really all there is?

I feel like the Supertramp himself when he made it
to Alaska, foraging the final frontier,
finding a great big empty bus to call his own –

And then died there.

“Happiness only real
when shared,”
he wrote.

I have survived a great many things
in this long, short life

I remember once when I felt proud that my problems were finally my own –
Not the unwanted touch of someone else’s mistakes
or hands –

I remember, too, when I felt like I had finally found home
in another person,
Remember feeling like it would all be okay, as long as
I had him.
And I remember a hollow sense like tearing as my spirit ripped in half
when he walked away.
To be fair, I was the first to walk –

Went in search like Supertramp
for my own frontier, I
Hungered for freedom, lusted for life
Needed to remember what sparkle felt like.

More than most my life I wondered when and how it would happen,
the shattering.
It felt inevitable, a reasonable conclusion to concede
to the monsters in my head
or the ones in my bed
or the demons that wanted me dead –

But I survived them all instead.

And now years have passed, alone out in the wild
With freedom on my tongue, with
sparkle on my skin.
I’ve danced under the moon,
Become the howling wolves,
Repented and been washed clean in the fury of the wind
a thousand times, it seems –

Tonight, I stood outside a while in the muted summer rain, lightning a silent film across the sky
The air felt heavy with possibility,
like it almost always does, to me –

Mary Oliver might say I felt so distant from the truth of myself,
or a version of who I used to be,
when I realized there was no missing piece,
no craving for relief,
not a drop of booze or herbal smoke or lusty temptation in recent history –

Only this longing, a scribbled note in a big empty bus that no one would likely read:
She is beautiful, yes,
but she is lonely company.