I live my life through the words I write
Month after month, time after time,
I wind up here.
Nothing works.
I try, I hope, I visualize,
hell, I even pray.
Nothing.
The growing pile of failed attempts
casts a shadow, longer this month
than last.
Can someone please tell me
what I’m doing wrong?
Day after day
we fall into routines
that may or may not
be good for us.
I have much to say
to contribute to the conversation,
to expose my experience,
to connect.
I can feel the words on my tongue,
in my throat,
poised to drip from my lips.
I cannot add my voice to them
before the topic changes,
before everyone else moves on
so they remain, poised and powerful.
They retreat back, away from my mouth,
down my throat
dropping into the stomach,
a series of small dead weights.
Contracting to comfort them,
my body crumbles in on itself
until I am nothing but a ball
of voiceless words.
I cannot help but think about the past
imagining the could-have-beens
for me,
and all who crossed my path.
A deceiving road to travel,
and one cunning enough to make me believe
the pictures my mind paints for me.
Today I’m diving head-first into the paint,
the scenes of memories long recollected
accurately.
I see me, I see them,
I see a dozen different outcomes
besides the reality proven true
by where I am now, here.
It’s entertaining,
it’s painful,
it’s therapeutic.
Partway through a scene I stop myself.
Even in this trance-like state, I know
this is unrealistic.
You would never act this way.
I like to live in lands of make-believe
but the unfolding of this plot
cannot fool me.
Some dim glimmer of reality must remain
alight.
I must think very highly of myself
to assume he would listen
to anything I wanted to say.
Sometimes
all it takes, is to hear
the call of an owl
gently wafting through the barren trees
of an early March morning,
before the sun has risen,
to remind me
to seek beauty and wonder
in this world
always.
I need you
more than you likely know
and more than I likely say out loud.
It’s OK to take it easy,
slow down your pace for a while,
if your body tells you it needs such.
I hear this from my body today,
a yearning to just be,
without constraints or expectations.
She yearns for me to listen, and oblige,
the least I could do.
She asks for love, and compassion,
and acceptance.
Unconditionally.
“Love me just the way I am, now.”
So today, I will slow down,
listen to, and love
my body.
This last day of a decade
presents with more importance than yesterday
even though that day too
was the end of a decade.
As is every day.
Tomorrow I will leave a decade behind
and enter a new one.
While society tells me how momentous this is,
I see it as another day,
another day gifted to me to be alive, here,
on this Earth as I am,
like today.
That, alone, is more than enough for me.
Dawning Words 