europa

i am stretched oddly between
a wild rootlessness
and a feeling of being trapped, feral,
strung out between everything and nothing.
the point is that what i feel like
becomes what i am,
and the diet commercials
and the long distance loving
and the friends who are far away
and the fairy tales that i can't live
and the novel of my life that i can't write
and the urban students whose lives i can't change
and the guilt and the lust and the fear and the loss
is not who i should be.
a right hand crushed in between obligations
and a left flailing in open air
might be where i'm at,
but it's time to find a different foundation.
maybe i could rest on the shoulders
of someone who is strong and broad-backed,
someone for whom the world is black and white and focused
on a single goal.
with gentle hands i will propel such a man
towards desire and fulfillment,
while he swims with me across the ocean.