A poem for today...

I didn't write this today, but I feel like I need a poem.

Awakening

I went to the desert to forget;
to lie on the sand;
to be consumed.

By the time you found me--I was forgotten.
You didn't recognize my face;
the color of my eyes;
the shape of my limbs.
I looked like stone.
I had become sand.

You called my name, but not the one I remembered.
You tried to wipe the sand from my face.
Your put me on your back, stone heavy.
You carried me to your table.

I remembered the cracks in the ceiling,
lying on my back,
looking at the patterened plaster.
It was familiar and distant.

You filled a basin with cold water,
pulled a clean blue cloth from the drawer,
tried to wash away the sand;
pulled the water across my cheeks,
over my eyelids,
around my lips.

You cleaned my ears and hair,
the hollow space in my throat,
the sun baked span of my chest.

The water ran down my arms and puddled on the floor,
made mud under your boot soles,
filled the cracks in the floor;
making things solid but still fluid;
filled but empty.

I stared at the ceiling and memorized the patterns in the plaster.
I felt the cool water under the sand.
I puddled on the floor.
Your sole prints looked like the ceiling, both familiar and distant.

I remembered your voice.
I remembered my name.
I remembered the feeling of the sand beneath my back--
the baked hot heat,
the course rub of grains and stone.
I remembered why I went to the desert:
to forget,
to lie on the sand,
to be consumed.

I lay on your table
and wept.