Tag Archives: confronting the past

Dying to Live

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Surrendering all I have to hold
I am finally held fast, safe in your arms

Falling free from every familiar foundation
I am firmly rooted, your enduring love, solid ground

Without a mirror of my own
I am slowly recovering pieces of restored reflection

Finding myself radiantly shining
The light in me revealing vast seas of deep shadow

Solemnly, I sift through memory’s rubble, cities of shame
Struggling to recognize my strengths, strewn among ruins

My grief turns the soil for each seed of growing
I have watered them all with my tears

Tattered wrappings, every wound unwound
Each emerging, red and raw, soothed in silence

Undone, unraveled, unwoven
I have only the whispered hintings at wholeness

With tender care, I am turned transparent
Trusting and trembling in the dark of unknowing

Now the reverent hush of stillness
Rest in the soft light, gentle, mending

Now passing through the sunless shelter
Pursued by my panic, though always protected

Now crossing the burning sands
Rekindling resilience, forgotten flames of anger

Now stirring as storms and streams
Leaping through lightning, relearning languages of laughter

And together, we will fly on wings of sorrow and solace
Grey and green

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Reflected Darkly

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How can I love you?
All you are lacking:
Your empty spaces,
Locked doors,
Torn dreams,
Blind fears?

How can I love you?
Squinting through the glare of fluorescent memories
At every twisted, knotted decision
Rewandering the wrong turns
Of your wasted years?

How can I love you?
With resentment coiling in your eyes?
Purple with anger
A thousand scars
Rage against the silence
Incapable of tears.

How can I love you?
I have searched the worlds for compassion,
But my bitter judgments are all I’ve found,
Every flaw screams loud and clear.
At a loss, I turn around
And put away the mirror.

For The Sighted Child Who Never Woke Up

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Last night I rocked you in my arms,
To the rhythm of the question which I ask with every heartbeat, why?

Did I think silence would answer me,
When I wondered aloud whether it was my fault?

Into the darkness you fell and could not rise,
Covered by a blanket of night without stars,

So do I run after you like a spark,
Or leave you behind without a word?

Crawling under the curtain between worlds,
Passed the water drip of time,

As if I could find within myself, still breathing,
You buried within the hollow hills of grieving.

Unable to defend your small fragile body,
You cry out for shelter, you almost died crying.

I am unable to notice the hands that reach out,
Convinced that, as before, my tears will banish me.

The infant with your perfect eyes and hands,
How can I conceive of you as my beginning?

If I was stronger, perhaps I could recover your memory,
But like an island, uncoordinated, that has lost it’s place within its map,

I wandered off into the mist, directionless,
And lost myself beneath the waves.

What am I doing here,
Convinced I don’t deserve the sunrise I won’t see?

How will I love, accept, and mend
The imperfect pieces left to me?

Again I will water the seeds of our growing,
Despite my anger, in knowing it is most likely too late.

Because I tried to heal
But merely broke apart, revealing

Sleepless dreams I tried to hide,
Someone else’s hope, so long ago denied.

Before giving into my unknowing
Of where, and if at all, I’ll stand,

I return your bright six-month-old smile
That has not yet known the cruelties of the world.

Faced with what I could have, ought to have been,
Our eyes lock and then

I let go, the girl who lived,
In relief, great tides, wash over me.

And so I shout a reckless challenge to the wind,
From a place that has no name, what might become of me I just don’t care,

I stare into the face of death until it blinks,
And I know now we do not die, there is nothing left to fear

For the sight child who never woke up,
I return for who I was, ever safely keep you near.

And now, once more in sunlight, though we did not travel far,
Dear child open your eyes, awaken to all you are.