beats and feet

the high-pitched drift-haze falls to slumber.
you didn't know you could try so hard so long,
only to find that this was the blunder.
this was the trap that held you snared,
that kept you small and scared
of doing something terribly wrong,
of losing your place in other people's hearts,
as if that's all you centered around,
your own beats made of other hearts' sounds,
your own feet on other people's ground.

you didn't know, but how could you,
when you went through what you went through,
when trying hard was all you knew,
the only way to navigate
the steps and stones, the steeplechase,
where love was both dangerous and safe.

you didn't know that if you stopped,
your beats would grow far up and wide,
would reach through air and ocean's tide,
where waves are only surface breaks
in what the eye can't penetrate,
where skin bleeds into fins and wings
that swoop and soar
without the need for conscious thought,
where feet stretch miles underground,
where a single breath is all you need
to take you back to unity.

you didn't know, and that's okay.
and tomorrow you'll be trying again,
trying to get the buzz, the fix,
of someone else's beats and feet,
and when you do, that's okay too.
remember, it's an old part of you.