Titles are Easy

I am dreaming in Fall leaves
A rainbow burst of color
On wet sidewalks
Old women who bless me in their mother tongues
Piles of jewels- more than I have ever had in this lifetime- tumbling to the floor as I reach for something on the nightstand.
I am dreaming of morning grogginess
Of a house full of the conversation of strangers
When what I want more than anything is silence.
Remember when all there was
was silence
and how I longed for the simplicity of conversation- any
conversation- to take me away from my
Water wheel of thoughts.

Now I am happy with the gentle tumble
of words my head.
They no longer rush like
the un-dammed Colorado River
the God-damned torrent too powerful
for me to contain
until they threatened to erupt,
creating a fissure because my mouth
was too tight-lipped to speak.

Words no longer threaten to break me open.
I've known what it is to be broken, then woven myself back
together, with threads spun from
Mother spider's web

Gathered carefully at dawn when
the sunlight is so gentle
it tricks the eye into believing it might
be a beautiful day.

Days when I've hidden in my car for eight hours
because the world felt so big I thought
it might swallow me whole.

Because I'd made myself so small,
it could have.