BELONGING

Lately I’m prone to be longing

To write of how belonging

Means I’m at home in my body

Wherever it happens to be.

It can’t have been long

Since I longed

To be needed

To feel such belonging;

To share myself undaunted,

‘Til what was wanted

Turned out never to be

Anything belonging to me.

Then I’d drool like those fool dogs

At the knell of school bells

Once the idea was seeded

That the only thing that I needed

To look like black ink’s in my logs.

The habit was strong

To sell my myself to belong

To the things I could own,

Just to belong with folks

What says they likes ‘em.

And then there are unexpected gifts;

Of unearned adulation or derisions

Offering bridges across their divisions

Or driving wedges by reading me wrong.

Belonging to me,

It has come to me

To not play that game

Of owning their name

By seeing their “Foe” is faux blame

For misery that needs my company.

Belonging to me, I can see

My wealth requires no ledger

For those belongings I haven’t,

The things I don’t own

Don’t require payments on a loan.

I belong in my body.

My body belongs in the body of Earth,

The Earth belongs in the Milky Way

The Milky Way belongs in the universe,

Not an owner in sight.