VOICE OVER

It is nearly time.
I have to leave.

Once that decision to leave was made
Time folded
The present became the past
And I became
A ghost of myself.

Years ago people came to America
And stayed.
But I might go and come back.
This indecision is what splits me in two
Being of two places
Haunting myself.
Leaving the trail of ghosts
Dissolving over distances.

This either/or life
Unable to connect
Every uprooting is so violent.
Every time I leave a place I’m shaken.
Every time I return it is only by leaving
Somewhere else.

All this will happen when I’m not here
This street will pulse and buzz
These people will stride on.
Their purpose immediate and hidden.

When I was a child
I got a fright
When I realized that the world was more than me…
I was merely a fragment.

Distance is an animal
That will devour me
So I keep walking
To rock this pain
That gestates
Inside
To put this longing to sleep.

It is nearly time
I have to leave.
Travel such great distance
This is not a choice.