The Eternal Conversation

Documentation of my unravelling and becoming.

[theeternalconversation]

Arriving Home

I feel like I’ve been away on holiday.

But not the restful kind,

the kind you take to escape.

I’ve been living vacant

in this body.

Lights off,

no one home.

I don’t know where I’ve been

but I miss myself.

Oh God do I miss myself.

I miss the feeling of my toes,

in sand or water or grass.

This morning I noticed them

on the cold tiles

standing in the shower.

Me.

Ecstatic.

For the first time

in longer than I can remember,

I could feel my toes.

We’re coming home.

Slowly but surely,

we’re all arriving back here.

Home in this body,

that’s been abandoned for so long.

© Eternal Conversation 2022

📷 Noah Buscher

[theeternalconversation]

Disembodied

I can feel it

lapping at my toes

this is where it starts.

And I tell myself,

“You’re okay”.

The words my mother used.

When I was a small child

whenever I was hurt

or crying,

“You’re okay”

she’d say.

Now I wonder,

if she was saying them

to reassure me

or herself.

Now grown I tell myself

“You’re okay”,

to get through

some of the tougher days.

When the grief has risen

from lapping at my toes,

to swirling round my waist.

“You’re okay”

I say.

To convince myself

not to panic.

To keep my chin up

“You’re okay”.

To keep my head above the hopelessness

that’s slowly filling my chest.

Breathe.

“You’re okay”.

That’s all that I can say,

it’s automatic,

almost genetic.

“You’re okay”

And I believe it

for a while.

Until it’s impossible to smile.

I’m not okay.

It’s not okay.

I don’t feel safe.

But maybe neither did she.

© Eternal Conversation 2022

📷 Velizar Ivanov