#8

After a point of time you have to belong to yourself,
pull up the anchors you laid down into the ocean bed 
that were other people because it has been too long 
at this port. Cities will fail you, crowd you with the 

shenanigans of those who come to the middle of the 
bazaars not just to fill her bags but also their souls.
Your body will become stained from their touching, 
their feeling your skin and eyes for something familiar,

like you felt the starless sky on those nights when you 
were out at sea, when you didn’t know who you were 
before all of this; who you are after all of this dissolving 
into the salty, warm, stuffy air asking the question —

are you real in the midst of strangers? Their sounds 
sinewing your thoughts, the ship’s anchors in the middle 
of being pulled up and a moment of hesitation that  
isn’t a hesitation — should you stay or should you go?