So glad you asked

All the things your poem says

Are secrets until you ask

Until you ask

The meaning doesn’t even exist

Until you ask

There is only ink on paper

A pretty picture

Painted for pleasure

Or born of sorrow

Or bred by jealousy

Forged in the heat of some passionate moment

There is only oil on canvas

Even before

There is nothing

Until you ask

Until you ask the questions

You really want to know

Until you ask yourself

What there is to know

Until you ask

There are only secrets waiting to be exposed

Until you ask

There are no answers

There are only feelings

And feelings

They can be tricky things

Laden with fear

Buoyed by joy

Reflected and refracted in the light of love

Or hate, or ambivalence

Indifference to/for-getfulness. For instance,

You saw movie once

And it moved you

To the point of tears or laughter or thoughtfulness

Even after you left the theater

On the drive home in the dark

The streets were wet with a rain you didn’t witness

But you know it happened, the thing

You find yourself still thinking about

Some thing

That maybe wasn’t even in the movie, or maybe it

Was you can’t quite remember exactly how it played out

But it’s there

You can feel it

You take with you to bed and to work the next day

Never questioning its existence

Like an arm or a leg or that new crease

In your forehead that embedded

Itself between your brows

It becomes the part of you

Where when you forget

thought turns to action

Until you ask

You’ll never know why

And why is a gift

Of expansion

Of possibility

Why is a window to the world

Front row just left of center

From the seat of your soul

A box-office smash-hit sensation

It opens the curtains and reveals

The promo for how

And how is the question

We all ask

When we want something

We don’t yet have

But how is not a question

For us