Give Me A Hand

Take a walk with me, would you please?
A short one as far as I can tell.
Just walk me to the gate of memory's lane
and leave me there.
I don't want to tread fast, or far...
Remind me I'm real.
That unaware was real
not reality.
That I've had a past.
That what my mind recalls
actually happened
once upon a time.
I'm not asking for very much,
understand,
I can't do it alone.
I just need a hand
to hold mine tight
in that moment when
darkness falls and I want
to turn back.
Don't say a word,
just keep me walking.
Don't whisper anything sweet,
just keep me walking.
Don't kiss my hand or cheek,
just keep me walking.
You can't follow me past there,
it's my own way to go.
Just give me a hand.

No Avonlea

Homeless looks different from the inside.
it's not a physical state, I've discovered.
It's not the lack of a roof overhead,
or the absence of a room, bed, pillow,
warmth, cool, clean...
I've found that it's not the need,
Though certainly not forgetting the need,
of the physical.
It's a state of being.
The state of being without a haven.
Haven and home imply something less finite.
They imply a belonging.
A trust and knowing.
That intimate place inside of me that
hungrily calls to those like me,
and those unlike me
for refuge.
It's that feeling I got
when Anne goes back to Avonlea
in the 4th book
and nothing is the same.
My Avonlea is gone.
I've always hated the point in stories
where nowhere is safe.
Living that chapter of my own story
is worse than reading a fictional one.