Serenity

Rage and Sorrow built a house together.

Rage laid the bricks cracked but straight

Sorrow built the walls tall but warped.

Together they built their home,

Hoping only to avoid the turbulent weather.

But the storms followed them in,

As they opened the door.

The wind pounded the walls,

The rain soaked the floor.

So Rage built the stones thicker,

He used pain as the mortar.

Sorrow built the walls higher,

She sealed the joints with Rage’s mortar.

Together they built a hearth,

They stoked a small fire and called it Hope.

Hope dried the floors,

And kept the storms from rattling the doors.

On sunny days Sorrow would open the shutters,

Rage would laugh and say they didn’t need Hope anymore.

But in the nights Sorrow fed Hope,

With the broken pieces of her dreams.

Rage also stoked Hope secretly,

With the tatters of hate he had saved.

When the storms came again,

The wind howled,

The rain screamed,

Rage and Sorrow felt their foundations shake,

The walls rattled, but did not break.

They both fed Hope and kept it ablaze,

Through the dark nights and stormy days.

Soon they had no loss to feed Hope with,

They found coals smothered in the ashes,

Of all they had fed the flames.

So together they cleaned away the debris,

Used the coals to stoke new life,

And called the new blaze Serenity.

Breathe

Dark and soft and deep

Your hugs are an ancient hardwood forest.

They consume me.

Surround me.

Soothe me.

Dark and soft and deep

Your arms fold me into you

And you inahle

I inhale

We exhale.

Dark and soft and deep

That is where our souls meet.

Where were you?

“Where have you been all of my life?”

“Getting ready for you.”

His words remind me

That without each step

Without the rainy days

Or sun filled days

I would not be me

Nor would he.

Our edges were ground down

We were broken repeatedly

So that we fit together

Him

And me

Perfectly.

Healers

Let me tell you something.

Healers? They never get the glory. No songs are sung about them. No great victories give tribute to them.

Darling, you could stitch up the wounds of a nation, and they would laude the needle maybe….or perhaps the thread. But not the delicate mortal hands that can keep the living from the dead.

You can nurse the injured, sick, and poor. Heal every downtrodden plant…animal…or person…who casts a shadow at your door. You could give of yourself until there is little…or nothing more.

But healers never get the glory. Though you are needed now more than ever before.

Short fat problems

I often wonder if

I am alone

Or if

By some chance there

Might be others

Out there

Who are vertically challenged

And horizontally, too

And who

When told they’re small

By some giant

Feel indignation

Or maybe some confusion

After acclimitizing to

The thought

That they are a behemoth

Among small and

Pretty things.

Or when told by

Some well meaning

Sales lady

That they don’t make

Pants short enough

For you

Or wide enough for

Your very wide

Thunder thighs

Are inspired by the

Most passionate frustration

And leave.

We are the bulls

In life’s china-shop

But we are enough.

Word Garden

Sometimes I don’t write anything for a long while. As if I am saving up my letters, and gathering them into a garden of words. Not until they’re ready to bloom do I have the chance to express them. As those words grow and fruit I reap the harvest of their essence. I crush them down into thick pulp and gather their dewy sweet juices. Only then may I sip their muse, and sometimes, as if a drunkard, spew it back into the world. The pulp however is a much overlooked but precious refuse. For from the crushed and broken meat of inspiration spring the seeds to start another garden. Perhaps less melancholy than my own.