Thorns

Many aspects of my life have become unstable lately. Some of the quicksand is tangible, like issues with my health and tough decisions I've had to make. But much of it is internal, shifting sands of self-discovery and change, and realizing how many of the things I believed for all of my life just aren't true at all. I won't go into detail. I can't. But I'm an extrovert, and keeping these powerful feelings inside would eat my soul in ways I don't think I can recover from.

@katrina-ariel has encouraged me to release some of this angst with writing, poetry in particular. I'm not much of a poet, but I am a wordsmith, so I can put feelings on paper without disclosing sensitive information. I could scribble it all down in a journal so it never sees the light of day. Or, I can put these thoughts out there on display in case someone else might benefit from my perspective. The thing about metaphor is that it can have very fluid meaning. It's the emotion I want to purge. Not secrets. And maybe, just maybe, writing these lines of verse did help.

source

Lost in endless hours and it’s me again, just me again.
Time trickles past and now I bleed again.
Never a wound to heal, this scar inside.
Tiptoe backward slowly, careful, mindful of each ragged edge.
Nothing there to keep me off each jagged ledge
Where every hope and precious thing has died.

Roses grew where trust went blind, went off the cliff and landed wrong.
Their roots ran deep and spread until their hold was strong.
A legacy of thorns, a trove of pain.
A flash of beauty, sigh of admiration from the earthbound trees.
Petals dropping, floating on a bitter breeze
Prove nothing lasts—not even thorns remain.

I coexist with anger, hide it deep inside my beating heart.
Letting go would tear these careworn threads apart.
My life is all that I have left to keep.
Loss so great, so deep, such searing of the soul that once was me
Absorb each hit, just take it, let it be.
And rest my mind, let dreams stay true in sleep.