I needed you

I really needed you

But even though your body was close

Most of the time

You were a million miles away

And there was a silence I had to fall into

In order not to hear my own voice

How then do we learn to face

And truly speak of these things

That are the bedrock of our emotional reality

Better it seems for us also

To look away

From the part of us in need

And to turn our back on or shame that child

For wanting too much

But still that specter of truth

Will seek to make

Its presence known

Hiding it deep inside

The depths of a depression

Or a suicidal impulse

Because to leave a young child that alone

Is to leave us with no holding space

Or ability to respond to, notice

And to fill

The deepest yawning emptiness

To look away is also to

Deny

Our deepest spring

Our truest soul

Our realest feeling

Or else to sacrifice them all

To live hidden

Deep inside the cavern

Of the hollow men