I've been walking since before I can remember
I've been walking since before I left home
Now my friends call me affectionately a traveler
And I feel my body's weight
I grow stranger as I pass from door to door
From someone's home to someone's home
I grow stranger as I wake alone each day
I keep on passing hoping anticipating
Because I'm good at it
It's the walls that keep me up
It's forward momentum that keeps me up
And passing words of courage from sympathetic passer's by
Wanting a relationship my way my preferences
Or not wanting one at all
Not knowing what to compromise for
And from whom I can really learn
Without having a partner
I keep on passing hoping anticipating
Because I'm good at it
When the streets are strange with faces
And to me I grow stranger tired
Doing what I know building my homeless sense of home
But you've brought me in from out of the cold
Into your home to rest beside your living room fire
It's so different than drifting through streets
Lined through boutiques where I can look but not have
Sometimes visits so brief I don't change
Out of my traveling clothes grimy from the road
Grimy from myself
But you've offered me a place to stay longer than just passing
You've offered me a place to wash and air out
My dirty laundry so that it's clean again
And fresh
So that I can feel clean again and young
I keep on passing hoping anticipating
Because I'm good at it
Three weeks ago I knew where I was heading
And apprehensive about my reality slipping
Guided by hope a vague idea not a real person
Like you
I've become comfortable in not being too close to people
But you offer me closeness
It's different than my vague ideas shaped through solitude
Window shopping movement uncompromising and sleeping alone
Your closeness is human It's not an idea
It's flesh and heart It's you All you
Some of your particulars may be different
Than my vague notions
As you are alive and my notions are a figment
Forgive me if I need time to adjust
To the you that's offering me a doorway out of the cold
Away from my mind trap that's keeping me cold
Keeping me away from someone warm and alive like you