April 28 : Dreamcatchers And Wanderlust

Soft lines mark out
deep honey coloured eyes
in a hard smiling face.
Tinted glasses (the colour of the night)
perched upon beautiful little nose.
Shining self-consciously in a dull, lifeless crowd;
in her monochromed life, alarmingly bright.

Well-fitted starched clothes to work. Heels.
Businesslike, brisk. Confident and composed.
After all, a life to live: built up
so carefully from fragments
of cracked porcelain dreams
picked out and held against
the blinding lights of reality:
the commonplace ruins of practicality.
It hides well her inner romantic, in this melancholy city.
But beneath the shells and layers and memories
her soul is made of dreamcatchers and wanderlust.

Behind the dark-tinted sunglasses lie her secrets
(open sometimes to those who float above shallow waters,
open to herself some of the time against a solid, dependable life
mother, daughter, lover and wife)
a worldfull of chances and mayhaps
built up so carefully from a perfect life
a house of cards rising against the gleaming glass counters
as order falls, the tentative yearning for chaos.
Within the whirl of her embroidered Indian skirt
lie rugged mountains and infinite oceans
exotic-skinned people, deep purple sunsets,
skyscrapers and windbreakers and railwaystation tea
dizzy late-night drives on winding roads and
comfortable blankets against pine-smelling fireplaces:
after all
her soul is made of dreamcatchers and wanderlust.

She lives in the night sky, with the stars;
casting aside demons with a twist of her arm
she puts away fear gently on the windowsill, rain-stained.
Pale skin bruised, fat ego tight-lipped, integrity intact.
Smug about her maelstrom of adventure (sipping her chai
against the pounding pain in her skull, shining eyes
half tear-filled and half innocent eagerness)
she doesn't hold back. She lets it fly, her anger
and her pain and her endless sky-filled joy;
floating, she dissolves in herself
pointing at beautiful sight after sight
against this rose-tinted horizon
in her night-tinted glasses.
Her sorrow she holds quite tight to her chest
wrapped up in ancient insecurities
she is silent, gathering it all in a single
tightly clenched fist at the end of an arm
held quite open against the thundering wind
threatening to topple her over
today.

And she will think more and cry more
see more and sigh more
she will have more to regret
more to repress
but she will have lived more than anybody
in these narrow crowded streets and spaces
(against the tight-set faces, the long-healed traces).
With the risk and the fear, she pulls into her arms
all the joy of the world. Complete and untainted
(as it is only when it comes with a price
as it is just when it's undented and unpainted).
Joy that comes with the hunger for knowledge,
experience, good food and endless love.
Joy as gentle as it is proud,
as silent as it can be loud.
She smiles, balanced solidly upon shaky ground
floating simply on the ephemeral clouds:

after all
her soul is made of dreamcatchers and wanderlust.