This yearning to be seen, my dear

Is as old as time itself.

Why do we talk, cry?

Why do we reach for other bodies?

In the night,

When you lie awake trying to decipher the heart’s message,

Do you hear the cicadas’ mating call?

That unbroken siren

Asking to be heeded.

But how many times have we dashed our boats

On the barnacled cliffs of indifference?

Be gentle with this yearning,

Place it in the hollow of a tree

Like a child’s secret treasure

So that it may only be found by those who speak to the forest.