Member Poem

I want to not exist.
I want to be a spirit, free and guiltless and light.
I want to feel the sun warm on my skin without the warning of sunburn.
I want to be on the coast of Mexico without suicidal thoughts.
I want to feel the way I felt on the plane ride back to Sacramento when the plane surged from turbulence and my heart leapt and I thought about lightning.
I want to lie upside down on the park bench, deafening music in my ears.
I want to ride my bike in the cold, unable to feel my fingers and ears.
I want to run my fingers across bookshelves and recognize each spine.
I want to cry freely.
I want to be clasped in your arms again, because I miss the way you held me in such a desperate moment where we were each other’s anchors.
I want to relive the feeling of being unable to close my blinds during a terrifying thunderstorm.
I want to rock myself to the point of drowsiness on the hammock while we talk endlessly.
I want to go back to the days where I knew who I was, even if I wasn’t a good person – I was a child.
 want to be intertwined with you again, lying on your trampoline under the stars.
I want to be the me who told you to get off the roof, but who joined you minutes later.
I want to be the me who’d kiss strangers cheeks, who was blissfully ignorant, who was blinded with things that seemed more important.
I want to be alone with you, to marry you.
I want a lot of things.
I want to catch my smoky memories and hold them in my hands like a precious artefact.
I never will.