It's Not Just You {a poem}

I hear so many stories about the moment
a person put a lid on their writing.
Full stop. Shut down.
Closed up shop. Come back later. Or never.
Sequestered the words to some dank corner
of the proverbial basement or attic,
the abandoned rooms, throw away the old skeleton
key, skeletons in the closet, occasionally
rattling them awake with whispers
of what wants to be written,
of what demands a name,
of what rises from the dark and holy places
in the body that sleep only
in the way tree roots sleep, alert to a network
of fellow sentry witnesses.

And then, one day, something happens.
An opening. Light through a keyhole
like an announcement, a hand-written
invitation with your secret name on the envelope,
a secret knock, a sound that you ask others,
can you hear that, too?
It's not just you, it's your stories
who've never abandoned you,
so patiently kept each other company
in a forest of all you thought you'd forgotten.
You'd all but forgotten this freedom
but now, you reach in and draw out
branches and debris, flowering folds
of tentative, tenacious tales that enfold your face
like the most loving pair of hands,
saying, we've been waiting for you.