“I Am Belonging”

— body language by Weddie Thiên  —

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"You are belonging," said the morning, said the rain,

Said the dog at the door and the whistle of the train.

But the world had its rosters and the world had its dues,

And it taught you to stand in a line and wait for hopeful news.

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Now the toddler doesn't wonder. Have you watched her? Have you seen?

She goes barrelling across every room that lies between.

She climbs onto a lap where she's never been before,

She walks into the kitchen like she came there with the floor.

She does not check the faces to find out if she's allowed,

She does not read the weather of the grown-ups in a crowd.

She is here, and so she's home. That is all. There is no more.

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She is not being brave and she is not being bold,

She is not making claims on a room she doesn't hold.

She has not met the notion, not a whisper, not a trace,

That a person could be present and not belong to that place.

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Then it comes from Mother's kitchen, then it comes from Father's chair:

"Be a good girl. Be a good girl." And the good girl hears it there.

Not a shout and not a punishment, just a word along the way,

But it lands as a condition, a condition that comes to stay,

Till the ground that always held her, where she stood without thought,

Is a thing she must be given, is a thing that must be bought.

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So she asks it in the morning and she asks it late at night:

Am I wanted? Am I welcome? Am I doing this thing right?

Now it's nothing they are doing, for their voices she has owned,

She auditions for her belonging, she’s forgot it is her zone.

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"I am belonging," and it never was a thing to take,

It was never there to give, so it's nothing that can break.

I’m not waiting on their okay. I’m not waiting at the door.

I have always been the room, and I have always been the floor.

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"I am belonging, I am belonging," it is not a thing I earn,

Not a lesson, not a method, not a wage to take my turn.

Before the House of Good and Bad ever claimed it had a claim,

Before anybody voted, before anybody came,

"I am belonging," and the hearth was always mine,

The fire’s been a-burning here since the beginning of all time.

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"We are belonging," though the most have yet to see,

And they knock upon the door when they’ve always held the key.

I will hold it for the others till they see what’s there to know:

There was never any outside. There was nowhere else to go.

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You heard it from another, then you found it was your own,

Then you gave it to the others who forgot what they had known.

Three roads into knowing, and they all arrive at grace:

From the hearing, to the owning, to the lighting of a face.

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"I am belonging, I am belonging," it is not a thing I earn,

Not a lesson, not a method, not a wage to take my turn.

Before the House of Good and Bad ever claimed it had a claim,

Before anybody voted, before anybody came,

"I am belonging," and the hearth was always mine,

The fire’s been a-burning here since the beginning of all time.