Many Lives, Just Not Mine

I’ve lived many lives
but none of them mine
like trains from Auschwitz
emptied of life
but also of horror.

I’ve been the old woman
haggard and worn
peaceably ruined by self-induced
solitude,
afraid of her own Dark.

I’ve been an infant
complete, omniscient
before the infinity of possible dendrite pathways 
wilted in the
familiarity of ignorance.

I’ve been a giant
too large for his own shoes
whose tears carved craters and canyons;
His bones impassible mountains
unscathed by Lilliputian archaeologists.

I’ve even been you,
you watching me;
puzzled by your own inner stirrings,
reminiscent of another dimension perhaps, or
longing to open the gates
to set me free.

But listen –

I’ve never lived inside
my own soul.
I’ve never even been
where you are searching for me.