Attention Deficit Disorder

Look at me
touch me
idolize
adore me

care for me

take care of me
fondle, feed and soothe me
protect me
shield me

curry my favor
and cradle me.

Pay attention.

Meet me half way
I said
you couldn’t even read my lips.

Why do I hunger for your gaze
your praise
your touch
you who is anyone willing to give it,
you who is anyone,
you
who are so wounded yourselves
so willing
promising salvation
pointing to the promised land
you
who are not Moses but the empty basket,
yea
though you float
you walk in step
drifting
feet off the ground
you
the walking wounded.

Each of us an empty basket
adrift
an infant
within
a vessel
afloat without rudder or sail,
a basket
case,
a soul launched on its journey without compass or self.

Why do I crave your attention
as though I don’t exist without it,
as though I am only present when you acknowledge me
see me
fixate on and need
me
for whom no needing is enough.

O screaming child
forsaken on that indifferent river,
will you never be found?

No way enough to like or know
enjoy me,
I require you to be obsessed.

Adore me
I am yours.
Idolize me
I am fulfilled.

Screaming child, be still.

I do the same
fawn at your feet
worship
burn white hot that I may burn out.
Either way
neither of us touches anything but our fantasy of the other.

Do the same?
I am the same.
I wouldn’t know the difference between us
if you didn’t keep me at bay.

Boundaries?

O Moses,
march me out of here.

Yesterday you were all
today I can’t remember your name.

Sex sates me
it
restores my perspective.

Now I see you for who you are.

Yesterday I thought we were one
thought I was you
you me
us
it
I lose myself in the mix.

See me for who I am?

Best you look beyond the beauty that is only skin.

Moses may lead us out of the Land of Idolaters
or Jesus out of Temptation
but they can neither of them lead us to ourselves.

There’s a sore in my soul that needs healing.
Like a hole in the ozone
it incinerates being
if I do not attend to it.

Yea
though I walk through the valley
it is neither desert nor death.

Yesterday I died to be born again today.

O Child
O Reed Baby
tossed on the vicissitudes of chance,
are you still waiting to be rescued?

Don’t you know that we are one.

Talk to me
look at me
read my lips.

It is not your attention I seek but my own.

Take me with you
Moses
take me home.