The Remembrance of Breaking
and grandma said matter-of-factly,
yet with a kind knowing in her eyes,
‘darling, broken crayons can still color.’
majesty in our broken parts
the stars in the sky
look like tiny cracks in the universe,
reminding us
that our majesty can be found
in our broken parts.
the lie we’ve been told
it’s a lie we’ve been told,
that broken is wrong, unworthy, useless.
that it’s better to swallow the illusion of perfection
and believe that wounding is a flaw of the few.
better to hide when you hurt and cover your scars
with armor made of makeup and busy schedules.
it’s a lie we’ve been told, so that we don’t see
the light seeping through the cracks,
the jagged edges, the shattered spots
that were never meant to break us,
but rather, break us
open
broken, open
know this -
life did not simply break you.
it broke you, open.
and now the world can not look away
from the luminosity that shines through
the shattered parts.
how many times
how many times have you
discounted your own experience
to preserve someone else’s?
how many times have you said,
“it’s fine. i’m fine.”
when it really wasn’t.
when you really weren’t.
when change asks us to break our own heart
in the center of myself
there is a question so painful
that i can not bear to visit it
for more than a few moments at a time,
because i fear the answer.
i fear it will turn my world upside down
and burn it to the ground.
i fear it will take all the hope out of me
in one life changing, punch to the gut.
i fear it will remove the earth from under my feet
and fill my eyes with a tsunami so powerful,
it will certainly drown me in a flood of sorrow.
i fear this question so deeply
because it is mine and mine alone
to answer,
which means if it is what i fear…
i will be the one who has to break my own heart.
on feeling lost
there is a fragile feeling at my very center
- the core of who i am.
an uncertainty tugging
like tension in the taut mouth
of someone with debilitating self-doubt.
worries seem to devour me
overwhelm has the power to bury me.
lost, in a way that does not feel free
- a hungry wolf sort of lost.
i look forward and all i can see
is an overgrown pathway,
uncleared, rugged.
i know i must move forward into this terrain
afraid, my mind becomes evermore foggy.
in a way, i feel forgotten,
or like I have forgotten, myself.
and in these moments,
life feels like too much
yet, at the same time,
not enough.
a letter to loneliness
dear loneliness,
i’m afraid of you.
i fear the solitude will swallow me whole
and the sadness will be a grief i cannot bear to hold;
holding me stuck in the stomach of bottomless emotions
i wonder,
when you look into my eyes,
do you hear the silence in my heart?
do you know what it feels like to be consumed
by the ocean and rocky edges of depression
to feel the hollowness of being isolated,
unseen, an outsider
strapped in by heavy boots sunken into muddy waters
when i’m standing under the night’s sky
feeling as though all hope is lost,
i wonder,
who can hear me?
longing
here i am
burning body and tender heart
awaiting the misty light
that seems to always be
just over the horizon of tomorrow.
both hopeful and exhausted
trusting and frightened
wavering and resolute
each night i release the weight of another day,
like a heavy backpack dropping off my aching shoulders
and pray to the ‘light of tomorrow’ that one day
it will be here,
today.
if this falls apart, so will i (the lie my mind tells me)
i look at my calendar, so organized and well planned out
from self care,
to reverse engineered planning sessions,
to time with loved ones.
truly, a hustler’s masterpiece!
i scan it over and over again,
with pride and a feeling of authority.
i keep scanning it,
seeing if there are any tiny refinements i can tweak.
more white space, maybe?
are the orange ‘exercise’ blocks
in balance with the yellow ‘self-care’ blocks?
hm, creative time for the sake of creative time,
have i scheduled that in?
what color should that be?
and suddenly, deep in my gut, i realize
the illusion of control that i’ve created
in the form of colored coded time blocks.
and now, i feel so clearly
the underlying, quills raised, overwhelm
driving the mirage of finely structured order.
i take a slow breath and at the close of my exhale
i hear the voice in the background of my mind
a sort of consistent and constant anxiety that whispers,
“if this falls apart, so will you.”
where and when did this become ‘normal’
my mind is achy with pressure
my heart is both heavy and actively pacing
shackled and restless
the lists
the ‘to do’s’
the balancing act of life
i feel stuck in my head
watching my body on auto-pilot
through two pinholes called eyes
oh! the lies
of chasing success
the cost - endless stress
a daily cup of perfectionism
a weekly dose of procrastination
a silent judgment incessantly lingers in the air
nothing is good enough (including myself)
where and when did this become ‘normal’
i want to scream the frustration out of my bones
i want to dance violently
until the anger is weeping from my skin
i want to shake my hands open,
surrendering, once and for all,
my need for control
mis-shaped souls
she believed that her past shaped her.
the pear-shaped weight on her hips
the saddlebags and cellulite on her thighs
the self-given scars on her arms.
she believed that she was broken, at the core,
for the longest time
and felt her mis-shaped soul would never
find a place in this world.
then, one day she traveled beyond
the borders of familiarity
and met, one by one, other mis-shaped souls
broken at the seams, cracked here and there,
rough around the edges
yet what she noticed was
all the beauty and light
that shined so brightly through those places,
that the world had called broken.
a gratitude letter: to the ‘tough stuff’ that made me grow
to death and loss, thank you for reminding me to not take the love in my heart for any moment or any person, for granted. thank you for reminding me to hug fiercely and often, and to look those i care for in the eyes and tell them what i know they must know, but i must never be so naive to ever stop saying it - “i love you.” and to say it every time, with a tender presence, as if it were going to be the last time, because you have taught me that one day, it will be.
to sickness and injury, thank you for reminding me that my body is a temple and i will be better off to treat this holy vessel with reverence and deep care. thank you for showing me that my most valuable commodity is my health and that every breath i take, full and alive, is the most precious gift i will ever know. thank you to the bones that carry me, the muscles that move me, and the skin that holds me. for i now know, that the moment it can no longer carry me, move me, and hold me - i will truly appreciate just how exquisite this body really was.
to heartbreak and longing, thank you for reminding me that love is everything. it’s the dark and the light, the pain and the pleasure, the beauty and the brutality. thank you for showing me how extraordinary and grand my love really is and for breaking my armor open, again and again, so more and more light could come through.
to confusion and doubt, thank you for not only reminding me, but insisting, that i look deeper. thank you for showing me that through the question, i’m being invited into a quest. And that this awkward journey is not so much about discovering the one right answer or path, but rather, it’s about being willing to do things differently than i’ve ever done them before, so i can know my own soul, better than i’ve ever known it before.
to aging and change, thank you for reminding me of my own humanity. but mostly, thank you for giving me a life long enough to bear witness to lines becoming etched on my face and short, white, strangely shaped hairs poking out from the top of my head. thank you for giving me the years to know not just knowledge, but wisdom - the kind of knowing that understands it would be wise to not only accept, but pray that i get to be around to witness many more lines and gray hairs in this lifetime.
to my darkness and brokenness, thank you for connecting me to the beating heart of this world and to the wholeness that was always, already there. thank you for showing me that you were never here to hurt, only to heal.
