I walk down the street holding hands with the me I was and the me that I am
It is the strangest thing
Walking between them
If you saw them walking down the street, beside me, handing hands
You may think, they are the same
As I am
As we stand in a line
Although you’d be right
Through your from a distance eye
The truth about us three might change your mind
For they the way they are the same
Yet
For all the ways
They are nothing alike
It is one of those things that
I just can’t quite
Put my finger on
Our finger on
Your finger on
As our feet lift and meet the pavement in perfect unison
Their hands feel the same holding mine on each side but
Their grip feels different
As we stand in our line
One is soft and lets go every now and again
The other holds firm and assured and committed and tense
They speak to one another
Almost as if straight through my head
Not often, but sometimes
Instead
One whispers and the other speaks at a normal conversational tone
One giggles under her breath, conserved and controlled
The other laughs loudly and deeply like her body is her home
Assured and centred and honest and alone
It comes from the depths of her stomach and the edges of her dimpled cheek
As the woman to my right watches on enviously
The woman to my right waits for permission to speak
Scared by how her words might be received
The woman to my left listens, but responds respectfully
When she wants
And expresses her needs
With an edge of awareness for the space she takes up
For the understanding that her words never make her too much
One tilts her head to the sky to ask why as she weeps
The other cries with a hand on her chest and and her eyes open as she repeats
It is all happening for me
The bad and the good
It is all happening in the exact way that it should
The woman to my right let’s go my grip once again
And with a quiet, loving silence
I just keep walking
She paces slowly behind us, always there but never near
As the woman to my left finds pace as we disappear
Forward
Up a hill I haven’t seen before
Beyond comprehension, and knowing, to find the good in it all
