A Leaving of Sorts

I let you go.

like a ribbon of cloth
held up against the sky
grasped between my fingers
bucking and whipping,
desperately aching,
in the wind.

I let you go.

tumbling and twisting forward
underneath, on top again, and sideways
buffeted by the elements.

I watched you go.

in that instance,
as my hair whirls and weaves itself around me
and cradles me in curls,
like a diver adjusting
to the break of the surface,
I feel the pressure ease.

the weight lifts from me.
like a binding cloth that peels away from my lungs,
I feel my cloak of claustrophobia,
the sadness that often envelops me in a suffocating sorrow,
disappear.

like something ethereal. it evaporates into the atmosphere.
and what I've carried with me for years.

I watch it go.

-- lml June 18.07