Somewhere Near the Hippocampus
Feb 22 2008


Most of the time
I muddle through, I keep it up.
But sometimes, I stop and wonder,
thrown off-course
by thoughts of love.
How powerful it feels.
How much hard work.
And how easy it is
to hurt someone,
or be hurt.

Perhaps, when I was too young to remember
I was stunted in love,
never really learning how.
So that now, I struggle to let go,
to step-off the sheer edge of surrender.
Not a club foot, limping.
Not a lazy eye
that makes a girl nervous.
And not the lizard skin that no one wants to touch.
Just a shrunken knuckle of brain
somewhere near the hippocampus,
hidden in a small inaccessible fold.

So when I’m hugged, I stiffen,
and I tend to keep my distance,
like the rich in their gated estates.
Who, ironically, envy the poor;
because the poor are good
at living for today,
and yield so easily to sensation.
But my personal boundaries are trip-wires;
infringe on them
and klaxons go off in my head.
So beware, all trespassers will be prosecuted,
or at least get a caustic stare.

Although I’m told there’s a secret code
— the password for free passage through no-man’s land.
Whisper it in my ear,
and I’ll take you by the hand
and let you in.
Perhaps, when I’m old, I’ll remember it.
When I grasp for names, and blank on faces
and have all but given-up on love,
I’ll regress to my distant past
— in my second childhood
a second chance.