my apartment is filled with my beautiful hoard,
an unexplored jungle of my own making.
I am an adventurer,
discovering hidden treasures which reveal my true essence, my inborn spark, buried long ago,
and secret passageways to distant memories.
I am an orphan,
lost and blank-minded with panic, facing the vast acres between the dense foliage where I’m ensnared
and the peaceful clearing where I want to sleep
under the nurturing moon.
I am an explorer out of my depth
and ready to go home,
but I am lost.

My friend is skilled at decluttering,
a nature guide, with an intuitive sense of direction,
and experience in terrains of all kind.
She reassures me
she will find me.
She assuages my
doubts and fears of
abandonment and burdening.
And before I know it,
she is here

in front of me, through the shades of green,
with a hand holding vines and brush back
like sweeping aside a curly curtain, tangled and tendrily,
and her other hand extended to me,
a steady and jaunty offering,
a sharing of strength
that says

come to me, and I must follow,
no matter how frozen and heavy my legs feel
or how my fear buzzes and swarms like flies in my chest.
I don’t want her to return empty handed
and I don’t want to be left in the forest forever.

She is patient as I shiver and squawk at every bug
threatening me by minding their own business,
and as I contemplate and mourn every flower and twig that I must leave behind
for longer than is needed
for logic says I can’t carry them all.
I have never been encouraged to take my time.
And so there is time but not space for grateful words gurgling in my
belly like lava, hovering in my throat like clouds ready to burst.
My friend is patient
and focused on me
and the task of extracting me from the depths of my shame.
I focus on my friend’s back,
a steady presence
leading me home.
From the back of my mind, I watch myself
experience someone lending me their strength through my toil,
and I watch myself tumble through the forest, with
giving up creeping behind us relentlessly.
I watch myself claw every step from the maw of defeat,
determined to surmount the forest.
Struggle and danger identified, panic waits for its turn to takeover.
I focus on my friend’s back,
and I try to keep my worries down.

my hallway lights have been out for weeks.
it’s fine in the day and I’ve gotten used to it at night.
My friend stands in the passageway and orders me,
get the ladder.
I open it in front of us
and we look at each other

for a second too long
and then I rush to action.
I cling to the ladder for my life
and ascend shakily because
carpet provides no support.
The top of the ladder is unnaturally high
and I don’t like it up here.
I can still barely reach the lightbulb.
It is almost as wide as my hand and I carefully spin it
leftie loosie for what feels like way too long and maybe
I got my rights and lefts wrong
and then it finally comes undone
and I am able to lower my hand slowly
like I’m bringing down a kitten from a tree.
The descent from the ladder is as treacherous as the climb
and I am grateful to be on solid ground again.

The task is done but the second between
my friend and I is stuck to me
like a spiderweb.
In my hesitation, an expectation
landed first: my friend would go up the ladder.
Panic landed next.
Save me, my mind cried.
I can’t swing vine to vine and I am falling
into a ravine.

but my friend believed in me, and
didn’t want or need to overstep.
She thought I was capable,
and so I was.
In the end, the ravine was only in my mind,
and the challenge in front of me was a manageable
change in elevation.
Understanding coils in me, settling down before sleep.
My friend doesn’t need to carry me
and cannot walk for me. I walk behind her, but not beneath her.
My role in my own rescue solidifies.