In The Room

To sit in welcome silence

Is comforted beauty

Filled with its own calm

It’s full here

To sit in disconnected silence

Is heavy jagged pain

Filled with its own undertow

It’s empty here

A Poem of Missing

The slow death of disconnect
Fading into the back ground
Lost in a chorus of urgency
Close in is static
Running toward change with chains of mud
Starvation not of body but heart and mind
Dried up words cling to my throat
It is so much
It is not enough

Inside war

This morning, I allowed my self to feel some of the anger that’s been bubbling. I looked deep into where inside this is sitting. I am so angry and disgusted with myself. As most of you know, simultaneously my knee and my shoulder have been failing me.
Three years ago I was building a strong body, I had found some relative freedom from my mental monsters. Through life circumstances and a couple of freak falls the physical and mental took a few hits.
The pain is constant, and some times workable. But has chipped away at my physicality.
Yesterday walking was nauseatingly painful. This morning, while I was achey I thought it might be workable. So I tried to stretch, a bit of yoga and a few other things to get moving. The knee and shoulder screamed all the while.
I crumpled to child’s pose and wept. I am so angry that I can not do what I could before. I am so frustrated I have all but lost the gains I had worked so hard for. I am so disappointed I gave into some old patterns. I am broken hearted that I feel so little compassion for myself.

I want to keep trying. I have to keep trying. There are a few things that I have kept with. There are a few things that keep me going. I can do my day to day. But these things were not done for self compassion, these were done for functioning, so I can work, so I can do the day to day. But not done of love of self. This makes me saddest of all.

I see this in others, I offer compassion and uncompromising care for them. Trying to let them know/feel that they deserve better. I have gallons of outward empathy. Yet inward is empty.

What is it that makes us feel unworthy? Being unseen for the beautiful creatures we are? Being told we are too much or not enough? Being discounted? Being shunned when we offer love and compassion to others- setting the seeds that even our best is met with disdain so me must be grotesque.

I am allowing the pain in today. In my body, in my heart, I will not dull with medication so I can ignore it. I will accept it as a part of me, for now. I will try ever so hard to find the compassion for myself that it’s ok to feel what I’m feeling. I will accept my disappointment. I will sit with this. I will try to love self despite these perceived failings, I will try to love these broken pieces too.

This world is hard. We all carry so much. Be kind. Be loving. To all. But most of all to SELF.
❤️

A Moment of Healing

Trust yourself

Place your hands on the warmth of your skin

Breathe, you are here

There is no sting

Pressure of the phantom hand

Trust yourself

Place your hands with compassion, the places once scarred, mark the beautiful start

Breathe, you are here

Place your hands, the fleshy parts, once blue, now rosy pink. There is no harm

Only honour, only love

Trust yourself

Place your hands, over your heart. Offer compassion to the place ruined not by love but by betrayal

Breathe, you are here

Place your fingers on the softness of your throat, the strong vibration of words now clearly spoken, from a place once stolen

Trust yourself

Place your hands upon the place where your soul resides, accepting both the light and the dark

Breathe, you are here

Place your hands amongst the spaces where your power hums heavy, intimately yours, you owe it no access from others.

Trust. Yourself.

She Was Silent

She was silent

She whispered

She spoke

She asked

She yelled

She howled

She cried

She asked

She spoke one last time

The indifference of silence

She will be silent once more

My Voice

Hand across my mouth

Arm across my throat

Words slapped from my lips

These are things that stole my voice.

Speaking to the ether

Not being heard

being told ‘you didn’t say that, I don’t remember, that’s not the way it happened’

These are the things that stole my voice

‘Do not speak until spoken to, no one wants to hear your opinion, no one will answer your screams’

These are the things that stole my voice

Years of tangled compression, oppression these are the things that have stolen my voice I can raise my voice to stand for you

I can raise my voice to stand for social justice Hear the echos? They come loud and clear

But when it comes to self, when it comes to me , it fades to silence

The old compression, oppression, squeezing in, taking the air, taking the sound,

restricts, constricts

My wants, my needs, my feelings, my thoughts I want to stand firm to say NO

No that’s not what I want

No that’s not who I am

These are the things where I’ve lost my voice. The sticky weapons of violence and cruelty that is wound around my voice for years and years and years

Squeezing away the sound, the breath, the air this is the tangled mess I seek to undo

to breathe life

this is where I want to find my voice

this is where you will hear me clearly say

No these are the things that hurt

No these are the things I don’t want

Yes these are the things that are right

Finally my voice will match my world voice

I will be heard

A Prayer for Chronic Illness

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the pain is low and meek

If it rises before I wake

I pray for the right meds to take

Now I lay me down to sleep

It’s quiet here, so I can weep

The smile I wore all day was fake

It’s almost more than I can take

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray for rest, for I feel weak

Let the monsters be still, until I wake

So to the next morning I will make.

Escape

To breathe.

To walk amongst the dead.

To move among the ghosts.

To wait to hear the stories.

To get a sense of what comes before.

To touch where I am.

To see where I can go.

Deny the technology

Welcome the energies

To breathe

Impromptu escape.

Remember the magic of who I am.

Day Break

I stood in the grayed in dawn , the silence and took in a big breath.

The noise in my head has been so loud, the pain that comes along with that has been so sharp.

The inner and outer worlds have been clashing for a while. I’ve tried to hold steady.

The faint trace of smoke is in the air, as I breathe down into my lungs and push my feet into the cold cold grass.

Touchstones, the cold of the grass reminds me I’m real, the taste of the smoke reminds me I’m real, I haven’t yet disappeared, I haven’t yet faded with the mist of the dawn.

I do not know if today holds battle, or a blessed retreat and peace. All I know is in this fractured moment I find stillness.

My Steady

Inspired by my encounter with the old man at the train I was called to visit another Old Man on my way home.

Although my to do pile threatens to topple at any moment I had to take the time to come and see my steadfast friend.

He listens with out judgment. He does not tell me I’m dramatic. He lets me lean in, and does not shift away. He has seen my true broken self, heard my anguished cries, my whispers of joy, my tenuous hope and still welcomes me to the quiet safe haven.

I am sinking. I am in pain. I am overwhelmed. I am overwrought. I have failed at so much.

My words feel lost. I feel ungrateful. I feel selfish. I feel invisible. I feel exhausted. I weep at his feet. I try to slow my breath to match his ancient rhythm. I try hard to hear his message from the Gods.

For a moment there is stillness. For a moment the monsters stop talking. For a moment…….

As I take my leave, I let the late summer sun dry my tears. I give thanks for the gift he has been in my life. Off to do battle once more.