Before I came here, I was loved, but I didn't love.
That comfortable feeling of being loved,
of going through the memorized paths,
filled my heart every day, drowning the loneliness.

Some nights I filled with bodies that loved mine,
and made each other happy, skin against skin.
Other nights I filled with the words and touches
of the voice of true friends, mixed with alcohol and truth.

And in friendship I kept myself alive inside,
and in action and struggle and pain and hate,
I kept my body moving.
So that it would not know it was utterly dead,
inside and out, like a rotten giant tree.

And so it was that I was sent away,
again and further from my home,
away from the infinite places of my heart's content,
away from the arms and the voices and the faces
that meant so much to me.

And in that exile I found love.
And there built a home, and a life.
And my heart is full. with love,
and happiness.

And in it's core I keep,
under a thousand locks,
my friends voices,
and an endless golden plain,
under a cloudless steel blue sky.