space

today I need space from the world.

I need a cushion ten clouds wide and two mountains deep. a moat around me, one with the breadth of snake river and the power of cottonwood creek in the heat of spring. people's arms can reach out and touch me, and I will feel their love, their empathy, our conjoined pain, but I am protected so that I won't fall into the well of despair that opens up when hearts touch and intertwine with other hearts in shared sorrow.
their hands will float across the clouds and lightly rest upon my shoulder, my back, my hair, and then they will fade away and I will be left with the heat from their soul.

I am balancing, I will stay upright.

and I will crash, eventually, inevitably, momentarily.
and the well will be there, and I will fall.
but all of those hands that have reached across the abyss to show their love form together to build this beautiful human ladder that will provide me a path up and out from the depth of that well.

thank you, hands and hearts and souls that surround me, and stretch far enough to reach me across the clouds and the moat. I feel you all.