Reincarnation

It took precisely fourteen years

For me to reincarnate

I was adrift somewhere

In the ocean of birth and death

The ocean was expansive

And dark

The waters were calm

Perhaps merely the waters of the womb

But I was adrift there for years

Awaiting rebirth

Awaiting a new body

It was dark there, no light could penetrate this place

It was the darkness of introspection

The darkness of waiting and growing

Distant stars from high above

Called sacred songs to me

I watched them dance in the velvet black

I longed to understand their song

But I could not hear their words

I could not decipher their message

I had not yet learned their meaning

Before this life I was a young mother

Too young

Too small

Too unsure

Of the strange world I was thrust into

The times were too turbulent

Colours ran together

Music blared

I was confused and disoriented

A lost little bird

In the nest of hawks

A runaway

Just a child blending seamlessly

Into a world of adults

I gave in to a dark needle

Dripping honey sweet promises

Release from pain

Release from darkness

Just a prick and I could fly

Just a little pinch

And it all went away

My dreams were sweet

And darkness fled

But just one too many

Just a bit too much

And I found myself adrift

Floating in silent waters

Looking up at the stars whose songs

Were so foreign to me

A voice whispered to me

Calling me an otherworldly name

That none living could comprehend

It told me secrets that I was not meant to recall

It told me I had not yet learned

What I needed to learn

To understand the stars

So I was sent on

That voice, that I can only guess

To be the voice of the divine

Not knowing that I retained its words

Like the memory of a feather's touch

Like the breath of Zephyrus against my neck

Those words reached down into my spirit

Resonated there

Like the vibrations of the very universe itself

You haven't learned

That voice had said so simply

Simple words that echo and resound

Bouncing back to me off the walls of my very soul

You haven't learned

It had whispered in the dark

Before breathing life upon me again

And I listened

I remembered

Perhaps I was meant to remember those words

Perhaps we all were meant to remember

But the world replaces those words with trivial things

The world just makes us forget