My Words Are Uncomfortable

 
My Words Are Uncomfortable

(“There was a widespread outcry from the people and their wives against their Jewish countrymen.” Nehemiah 5:1)

Some people just want to be heard,
to be felt,
to be understood.
They cry one thing, but to those who listen
carefully,
their song is heartbreak
trapped inside uncertainty.

If only there were soul surgeons
to open us up inside, to see more clearly
all that is more than skin deep. But our
hearts go on beating and we
still do not understand our own songs.

We know how the words sound,
we know their meaning is plain,
but we also know, somehow, somewhere
inside the stained edifice of a face that
has seen too many concrete days
there is just a pure outcry for
love,
nothing more.

See me
(I ask)
and take me at face value.
Hear me
(I cry)
and excuse my embattled phrases.
Touch me
(please friend)
and see how I shake.

My words frighten me, so I cannot let
it upset me
when they baffle you.

I scramble to arrange them differently,
but they do not sound like me.
And you, you probably know me better
than I think I know me well. So, my words
are uncomfortable as itchy wool, they do
not fit, they are poorly tailored. They are
sand in other people’s shoes.

I will return to the conversation, relax my suppositions,
and bury my poetry in the garden to
dig it up for a better day.