Three Plus Me

I’m walking three paths at once, four if you count my own.

One minute you come to this fork in the road, and instead of choosing between them, they coexist alongside each other. They tangle and eventually veer off in different directions, and somehow you all come back together, like you never let go of their hand.

I’m watching three paintings come to life, four if you count my own.

Sometimes I think back to who I was, a million years ago. I have taken parts of her with me, the soul of her. I have shed uncertainty and doubt, I have let them scribble all over me, breathe new colour into me. I have become gentler with myself the moment I was framed by them.

I’m reading three stories at a once, four if you count my own.

Pages unnumbered, coming back to chapters, underlining memories, and suddenly watching words appear on pages before me. Little hands holding pencils, writing their own endings, so many endings, so many more beginnings, with me, their co-author, for now.

I have three little shadows, four if you count my own.

They hop, and skip and climb up walls with the sun. I move, they follow, I follow where they move. How beautiful to know a shadow in the way you know a scent, a smile, love.

I have three little hearts, one, if you count my own.

They live within mine, they fill me with that terrifying kind of love, the one that only a parent can know, the kind that makes your heart beat faster, explode, and steady. The kind that keeps beating forever.

A love so big it has nowhere to go, but everywhere.