metonymy4u

                        a long stretch even
                                    for a psychiatrist

as i read back through some of my client’s old files
one day
just to catch up and
address some clinical issues,
hopefully, i
found myself wondering,

what did he look like then,

when he was
the 18 year old with a history of depression,
and who might have been abused
by some family member or other
when he was nine? in those days

was there light in his eyes,
home on his mind? despite
myself i couldn’t quite make it out—

what had changed?

i thought of a young,
wiry, grinning,
strangely
funny young man,
an overgrown boy really—

in his father’s best hat.

i tried to picture his favorite corner,
his own special pause and saunter,
the knots in his shoes or the way
he hung those long fingers
out of his pockets,
not resting,
but not doing anything either.

just awkward and time-spent.

the early signs of something that would one day
            bring him to me,
but that no one could name

yet.