I Can't Take my Mind Off of You

Nothing about you caught me off-guard. Not the way you held yourself, or the listening face that most people did not expect. I wasn't surprised by your fear or the crinkle of your eyes when you smiled. But only when you smiled at me. Me, me, the glorious me, the me of dreams and puppy tails and snails and Mary Quite Contrary, and the public railway line.

“I can’t take my eyes off of you

I can’t take my eyes off of you.

I can’t take my eyes off of you

I can’t take my eyes off of you”

I can see the noises of our farewell rising from the sidewalk with a vengeance. Was there anyone else home? Any soul to see my severely miscalculated attempt at religious freedom? But I did escape, unscathed, an unsightly, esoteric Esther. With a seat before the King, or the Queen.  With my head held high and my hands held higher, praising the tears I cried and the hardness in your voice. O, lo and behold, I can’t be what I've been. Not anymore.

Take a look at me, and where I’m standing. I’m nothing, just a ghost of what used to be, and all of the artifacts that my fingers and toes dug into with all I knew. With the wind blowing one way, and the trees blowing the other, I’ll be tossed around in the middle.

Can you take your eyes off of me?

A quick, gray, dip into the sea for me. A dip and a swim, and a cold unfettered jump away from you, until the salt and the seaweed and the sand are my bones, and my blood, and my hair. Now I can move, now I can breathe; now I can run away from the prying eyes and the sightless stares into my shivering soul and the sighing, the sighing, the sighing that breaks my ears at night.

“I can’t take my mind off of you”.

There’s so much to open, and so much to fear. And so much to find, and so much to hear.

So much to learn, so much to be near. And so much to love, and so much to mirror.

“My mind… my mind…

‘Til I find somebody new”.