Borderline
By
Jennifer Angelina Petro
I live on the borderline.
I live on the edges of your awareness
And of my own. I survive
Hidden in plain sight, and can,
Without knowing it has happened,
Shimmer in and out of two worlds;
I drift into little sleeps of the mind,
Little trances of sunlit memories,
Right as we are speaking and you
Would never know, and sometimes
The intensity of what I feel
When I am alone—
The brilliance of the darkness,
The keenness of the pain,
Bloom into a way of being
That says: “Death, come to me,
I cannot bear this anymore.” And then I do—
I bear it some more, and somehow I breathe,
Find a pulse, and where my feet are standing,
And rise, slipping into the present moment,
And into my body, and into you,
And I wonder where I have been
For so long.