Empty Spaces

Empty Spaces

If I had to think about it

The first was love

The first two weeks in life

Alone in the hospital

Except for visits and nurses

Mother left me there 

So she could get stronger

The list of fillers

Started to grow

Visible and invisible

My canyons were wide

And empty

Then there was pleasing her

Starting at age four

Though maybe before

Practicing piano

Only to please her

Because it didn’t come from me

I hadn’t developed my ear

A few more years at seven or eight

And I’d have heard what

I needed to hear

Then came food

I stole food

Opening cans of food

When nobody was home

Or when others were in other rooms

Then there was sex

Oh yes sex

An early interest of photos

Just two

Of guys that excited me

Though in junior high

I became obsessed 

With one or two boys

Who weren’t interested in me

I tried to be interested in girls

It just never happened

I was too formal

There was nothing natural

In my personality

It was all forced

I married and tried

But I couldn’t be natural

I couldn’t be the real me

And after that

Came alcohol

Despite my mother’s warnings

About her father

And my father's drinking

My forays here and there

Into booze were joined

By marijuana

Then sex again

And now years later

I just want to be alone

I just want to be me

In my own world

Imperfect

Fat

And lonely

But I’m me

The empty space is still inside

Like a next door neighbor

Who borrows a tool

Never bringing it back

I'd need that tool

It's not there and I'd forget

What happened to it

So it's become a comfortable

Nothing

I'm used to the hole

The empty I sense

But don't know what's

Suppose to be there

I'll never know

So I walk through this world

Incomplete

An unfinished building

With stay out signs

Barry G. Wick