not exactly alone

have you ever spent a lifetime. wandering. waiting. 

searching. 

for something? anything?

a person? a sock? a phrase. a meaning. a favorite sweater. 

a feeling. 

any feeling.

tactile. or insinuated. the feeling of silk against skin. the feeling of condensation on a pint. of safety. of home. of belonging.

belonging.

longing.

i have spent a long time. searching. waiting. wandering. 

trying to grasp at straws to poke above the water i was so clearly drowning in. to suck just the tiniest bit of air into my gasping lungs. never enough to fill them to bouy me up. never enough to push out words or boundaries. just enough to keep me alive. just barely.

i have wandered. followed. and trailed behind. left behind. tossed aside. or did i sidestep?

stepped off the path i had thought i meant to follow. thought i was meant to follow. 

following. 

walking behind. 

never next to. 

was it a choice? when did i chose. when did i chose to be alone? did i chose to be alone. or was my otherness. my asianness. my feminity. my dark hair and dark humor. was it me. the me i was and am. was it just enough to be too much. too much to be normal?

i joke that i collect the broken and strange. i find them and fix them. send them on their way. the injured butterflies that need a moment to warm their wings before taking flight and leaving me. bewildered. on the ground. alone. watching as they ascend on their wings. waiting for my own to unfurl.

i have spent my lifetime. thus far. building a wall to keep out the sharp things that would pierce my wings. tear my wings. keep me from flying. but i realize. i did not give myself enough space to grow them. 

maybe it's not that i find the weird things. maybe it's not that i attract the strange. maybe it's not that i am too much. too honest. too odd. too scared. 

maybe it's that i was always too busy looking up at what could be. what i wanted to be. too busy looking down to find what was. to follow a path i never wanted. that i never bothered to look around. to see. that i was not exactly alone. 

and now. i have.

i look around. and i see. i am not alone. 

i am asian and american. i am dark and i am light. i am rage and i am laughter. 

i built a wall around me. but it wasn't made of stone. it was made of the me who was never meant to be. the suit of armor i thought society expected of me. the me i lied myself into being.

but i am stepping out of that chrysalis. shedding that prison of what i believed i was expected to be. the arbitrary rules i kept a tally of. the ballast that held me down. the camoflague i wore to be less. be less noticeable. less loud. less proud. less me.

i have spent my lifetime hiding my wings inside. 

and i am not exactly alone. 

i can not define what i am. how can you define something as transient as time? we are all but moments. glimmers of life. a second of hope. a year of sighing. an eon of love. an infinite amount of possibility exists in all of us. 

there was a time a younger me was able to walk the tightrope along that infinity. that terrifying and exhilerating expanse of possibility. i shut it away a long time ago. behind a door. i closeted that moment. built my wall just out of reach of that door. 

but now. i feel the pressure of my wings. they itch of freedom. climbing between my shoulderblades. i just need to step out of this skin. 

i just need to step out.

out. 

and i am not exactly alone. 

i am taking back the moment i was. freeing the moment i hid. 

i am stepping out. 

and there is a world of moments. beautiful moments. moments who have never hidden themselves. moments who never knew that fear. there are moments which flew alone in darkness. frantic. and scared. until they too join the throng of moments dancing and flying. laughing and loving. supporting and fighting. holding open doors. breaking down the walls. throwing bricks. and spanners. lighting candles and fires. moments teaching and learning. moments just living.

there are moments like me. stumbling and looking backwards one last time. and swearing to never hide who they are again. 

i am stepping out. 

i am coming out.

and i was never exactly alone.