For The Invisibles

I am honored to be needed
In sacred spaces
I have chosen and created
To be one who understands

I find it unsteady, slightly
To be the only one,

Often, to be the first
To finally notice
What no one else could
or would see

It is lonely, most nights
and some days
To feel only needed
and not very wanted
Hardly desired,
Preferred, or even liked

On those nights
When I most needed someone
to call and
Nobody calls

I used to know how that felt
To have someone love me
for who I was -- and who
We were together --
and not for my
pretty face or my talents,
how easily I absorb the pain
Before I realize I gave
too much, too soon
And no one is there
to love what they thrust
into my soul, the hate
they did not want to face
in themselves

How could they want
to be present with me,
arrayed in the death
of their pain?

I reach for the innocent days
A window of time
Where what I knew not
did not seem to hurt

But it was just a mirage
The pain had not fled
In fact it had multiplied
and expanded
In a cave full of tears
and emotions that had to be
put away, had to obey

I could not yet understand
the value of being real
and cherished -- without conditions
How I pretended
and lived, suffocating
behind a mask,
My mother convinced me
was my real face
But really it was just
What she left behind
as useless bits of plaster
and paint

I had not carved out
the space in my heart
Where I could allow
the ones who loved me
to love me without hurting
Us and eventually leaving
Or being left
to seek companions for
the pain remaining

Maybe these wounds
are all we know,
the familiar pull
of a chain, not anchored
But stuck in a cold
and forgotten crack
Far below the surface
Too dark for most
to desire,
to explore

So I chose to fall
Like a meteor does
Sometimes, so fast
That maybe most missed it
That path seemed to choose
What inside me was
Determined to Lose
The ones who could see
And know my pain
Like a mirror held up
And not to be vain --

Not at first --

For the picture I often reflect
Does not attract
But shows the truth

Sometimes it is
Beautiful and shows
What is easy to love
And they do not linger
too long

But often the image revealed
has been hidden too long
in shadows
Too long has been
deprived of the light

And eventually
this happens with almost
everyone I keep
reflecting, hoping to find
That they will find beauty
and love and delight

What a fantasy
What vanity seeps in,
Seeps out of me
What a sad and desperate
illusion, a trick
And yet I keep hiding
Inside this distortion

Where it feels impossible
to break free
From what is already broken
All these pieces of me
I just want to become
Someone else
Who has not become
too attached
to the pain

I long to be Someone
who has not -- may not ever
develop or have to face
the ones who make

Some of us far too aware
That we exist
And we hold too tight
to what will not thrive

It is all I know sometimes

And I am certain
If I had a choice
I would die, most days
to be free of Me

Even these words,
My attempt to forget
My wretched state
Reveal my obsession
with myself,
Not the guide that is wise
But the one who keeps
banging her head
against the emptiness
All the louder
with nothing inside
to mute her cries
Echoing against walls

How can she be filled?
What have I to offer
to this tantrum that no one
ever allowed in the first place?

No wonder it is so difficult
to love the ones who got taken
for granted,
For being too quiet

For being containers
that all too easily
overflowed
with the troubles
that others did not want
to trouble themselves

How carelessly tossed

Into the space of holding,
so easily mistaken
for baskets of waste
or something else
blocking their way -
that made them stumble
and pause for a moment
in utter confusion
before continuing on their way

No wonder it is so difficult
to love the ones who got taken
for granted,

Abandoned too soon

Without being seen

--Mary Anne Stewart, Jan. 26, 2017 (still in editing process)