I live my life through the words I write
I want to run away, escape,
leave this pain behind
in my rearview mirror
and dust.
I have learned what it sought
to teach me,
know where I still need to grow
and even how pain can help.
I know this. I understand this.
But I want it to go away.
Work it out,
like a tangled, tight knot
in the back of your neck
that when your fingers land on it
after searching across skin for miles,
it’s like finding buried treasure.
Flex the fingers,
open wide the treasure box
then dig deep, down,
until you find the bottom.
I find buried treasure all over
and throughout my body,
but this large box before me
was difficult to open.
My flexed fingers digging in deep
will show me what’s inside,
for everything is treasure
if viewed with an open mind.
Just look at the trees,
look at their willingness to
embrace change,
let go of what they no longer need
and try again later,
when the Earth warms again in spring.
How easily they can let go
is how I, too, need to let go.
Too anxious to sit still
but too tired to move around
so I am here, stuck,
vibrating through my stationary body
with energy strong enough
to boil a pot of water.
This too will pass all too quickly:
the warm heat of summer
enveloping me as I walk out the door,
nurturing and nourishing life to grow,
drawing us out, to the outdoors,
to allow nature to care for us.
In the distance, the trees boast a new
palette of colors,
from yellow to orange to red
and every shade between.
Dollops of paint scatter on the ground.
A beautiful reminder of change drawing near,
for change is always drawing near.
But for now, all we have is today.
Enjoy this time of in-between seasons,
the shades of seasons’ grey
along the spectrum of white to black
with no right or wrong,
just now.
Just here, now.
Funny, the irony,
in having ink etched permanently
on my skin
of the very thing
keeping us disconnected
and breaking,
a picture of the very thing
I strive to do,
but am not.
All I need to do
is look at my arm
and do
what the picture shows.
It would be all to easy to cast blame,
deflect this on to you,
say it’s your fault, you started this.
If I had not met you
this would not be happening.
Easy,
but unjustified.
No, it’s more than that.
This beast had been hibernating out of sight
for some time,
and chose to show its face
when you were there.
I knew of its existence
and shudder at my naivete
in believing it could hibernate forever.
But all that doesn’t matter now,
all that back story
and circumstances.
What matters is now,
it is awake, and here.
I either find a way to tame it,
or get eaten alive.
I understand the need to look
for happiness
and that choosing it
is just that: a choice.
Despite this,
I cannot choose it easily
when all I see in front of me
is its opposite.
I settle in on the darkness
it seems,
before I even make a choice.
The darkness chooses for me,
and will not let me go.
You stay through it all
and say you love me.
My mouth knows not what to say,
my ears carefully select what they hear,
my eyes see things that are not there
and my hands remain close to me,
my body all disjointed
and confused.
Still processing
you.
Embrace the space
which has come between us,
growing wider and deeper each day
until now,
our reunion.
Tell me of you, and I’ll you of me,
learning of new and remembering of old
until the space disappears.
Back to the way we were,
two peas back into our pod.
I was lost,
tangled in the seaweed of the deep, dark waters,
praying for a chance
to gasp in oxygen until my lungs burst,
yearning for someone to extend a hand,
until today.
Dawning Words 