'still'

I still look for her. In the middle of the typing and the traffic and the deadlines and the bills, I look for her–the girl, who believed her bare feet could outrun the moon. She ran like a boy. She wasn’t trying to. Her strides were not intended for similes. No, she ran the way she always did When she wanted the wind to dance With the ungraceful tangles of her hair. Her gestures, careless, Were not meant to fit in boxes. She knew she was a girl; she had been told. But she didn’t have to know that one word Was the gravity that would keep her in line, Inching from one label to another. I still look for her. In the dusk and the shadows And the starless sky, I look for her– The girl, who believed in magic and Ghosts and faeries and monsters. She didn’t have to know the shackles That came with age, the chains That would bind her to the reality Where monsters don’t hide under the bed, Sometimes the monster, It’s in the daylight With a sharp tongue and a sweet smile. I still look for her. In the sunlight and the mirror And the eyes of strangers, I look for her–the girl, who didn’t think poetry Lived in the ink or the page or the vocal cords. She held poetry in the tips of her fingers, And she felt it each time she touched The surface of water and made ripples, Or when she traced the contours Of her mother’s face. She made poetry Like it was meant to be–felt. I catch a glimpse of her sometimes. In the Goosebumps, in the butterflies, In the sweaty palms, in the flutter of the heart, In a daydream, in a shooting star. But she’s fading, fading because Now she knows the moon isn’t following her And poetry made by hands, felt but unspoken, Unwritten, can be forgotten.