Instead of cleansing,

The rain just blurs the edges of this place,

Making it more difficult to delineate between

His and hers

Mine and yours

Pleasure and pain

Tears and joy

Why am I so disconnected from this Earth?

Is it because I live

In this created pseudo-Eden

Boxes stacked upon boxes

Full to the brim with

People like ants

Swarming with chitinous life

Climbing one over another

Day in

Day out

Without ever really noticing whose fingers we're treading upon?

I live in a building six stories high

I exist more realistically

In the clouds than on the ground

And yet I never

Take the time to look around

At the texture of the sky

At the purity of light

At the perfection of every single outstretched leaf

...And the loss is no one's but my own.

Tonight I noticed

That the crescent moon

Hung in the evening sky

Like the finest filament of a feather

Glowing and gleaming

Waiting

For a single soul

To lift their face

And bathe in the milky luminescence,

Exerting

Every ounce of its gravitational embrace

Begging

For just a moment's recognition.

I used to know the phases of the moon instinctively;

I used to be in touch with nature

And it grieves me so

To have lost that connection.

The moon has mothered me

More nights,perhaps,

Than my own fleshly matriarch

And yet...

I never forget to call my mom.

What is it about this city

That leeches every bit of color from my form

So that I need to paint it back on

With charcoals and pastel powders,

With chemicals and putrid potions?

How can an environment

Steal so much

Give back so little

And be entirely permissible?

And how do I become

Once again

The woman who greeted the moon

With upraised eyes and upturned lips,

Who danced in the waves of evening's tide,

Who thanked the grass for being

Such a soft and lovely carpet?

How can I solve this mystery of

Awareness,

Of self and surroundings?

If only the moon would whisper the answer.

If only the rain would beat out

A Morse code rhythm that I could translate into words.