There's No Name for This Feeling

there's no name

for this feeling

the one when

you are little

and you meet a kid

at the mall

or maybe at the hospital

at church

the grocery store?

not at school though

where you have to see

them every day

but isolated

a one-time deal

i'm gonna go with

mall

when i was little

like 8

and that emotion

of which i write

happened to me

blossomed

inside

a little play area

with concrete

turtles

a concrete

hippo

surrounded by wool-

worth's lights

beyond a wrought-iron fence

and this boy

and me talked

about nothing

played like nothing

my mom somewhere else

in the mall

throughout that night

being me

being no one else

and talking about

nothing but what we were doing

this kid and me

i think he was blonde

my same age

talkative but so was i

we probably lied

about shit

i don't know

inside the mall

like that surrounded by muzak

and people everywhere

but then the lights start blinking

time to go home

and my mom's nowhere to be found

that fear of not

having a place to return to

and that kid with his mom

leaving, me

pretending to know where my mom is

proudly letting that kid and his mom go

not even crying

but watching him

and his mom walking away

to some form of infinite safety

comfort

and love

me wanting to attach myself to them

to that kid and his mom

both people I won't ever know again

this intensity

this rush of not knowing

but feeling it all so deeply

that all of a sudden

the world is so

huge it can't fit into my sea-shell of a head

and it takes everything

not to run after them

that kid and his mom

begging for them to

take me with them

wherever they are going

you ever feel anything

like that?