Tag Archives: courage

Feels

I want to feel what I feel

I don’t want to be told:

It’s for the best

It’s gods plan

Snap out of it

Or insidiously

Get over it

I need to feel what I feel

The well wishers are wrong

Sometimes insensitive

To my patchwork heart

Whose whole is filled with holes

I know change has come

I know, eventually,

I, too, will change.

While I’m here in this moment

So different from what I knew

(Took for granted)

I require feeling what I feel

Without excuses or platitudes.

I am human.

I want to feel what I feel right now.

Just Shy

Not a shrinking violet

Or scared to use her voice

Like a maestro with an instrument

She delivered courageous joy

Dire situations didn’t daunt her

A guidon in a hurricane

although the grim did haunt her

Fear forgot her name

Soul Pool

Soul Pool

I have existed for eons before I was born

As a descendant of my womenfolk

Who have cradled me within their wombs

Nurturing my spirit they have always known

Just as I know them in my aging, dusty carcass

Animated by their tribal songs that lent me their breath

Extending their pneuma into my mortality

Anointing me with collective wisdom as my inheritance

Courage emblazoned like a scarlet letter;

ushered in with fiercest loyalty

Resilience bestowed as an endowment of hope

Strength of a champion intrinsically passed down

I am born again and again, basking in the immortality

Reveling in the joyful victories of lives well lived

Lamenting the horrors and pains that are birthed;

And rebirthed, and again

I am my mother’s eyes, my grandmother’s faith,

My great-grandmother’s charm,

my great-great-grandmother’s muscle memory

I am because of their willingness to grant me

This Soul Pool in which I float and swim

Growing Myself

My ancestral wisdom is tangible in my sunburnt skin, tasted on my compassionate tongue, washed in glorious joy, baptized in horrific sorrow. I am spirit ever expanding, heated with a desire to be loved, buried in the beaches of hourglass sands using a cracked red plastic bucket and a too small yellow shovel. I’m thirsty for knowledge, recumbent in peace. I am decayed by grief with only a mildly offensive odor. I have rebuilt myself, my life, my dreams with non-stock aftermarket replacement parts out of every past me I’ve ever been.

#2699

Darkness when I close my eyes. Pinpoints of light flare and fade against the backs of my eyelids like constellations. I imagine myself walking along …

#2699

“But our past selves are a kind of ancestor too, I realize.”

I’ve packed up my old selves.

Some are in cardboard boxes

Not neatly arranged, but haphazard

Strewn about through my ages.

Some are neatly painted wooden heart-shaped chests.

There are broken pieces of sharp wood and rusty nails scattered about

If you peek inside the ones with the missing pieces;

Lids askew,

You’d see a lot of damage on the remnants of me in those

But if you put on the complimentary rose-colored heart-shaped glasses

You’ll know my intentions were true, even if theirs were not.

Some are in disco 🪩 balls sending spectrums of reflection outward

Loud, frantic movements, jutting hips and ruby painted lips 👄

But who I’ve become is more than those but still the sum

Healing Hugs

I hugged shame

I loved disgrace

I encouraged peace

To the weeping face

I heard confession

I felt mercy

I held his hand

Told him he’s worthy

Removed the prison

Of spoken word

Showed him value

By actions served

He sobbed for relief

From a god he doubted

Regret his badge

His sight; sin clouded

Visible pain

ached his soul

But his words dictated

Desperate control

Will he surrender?

Forgive his heart?

Remember his humanity,

That is tearing him apart?

I can’t fix him

Or make things better,

Just let him feel loved

Releasing the debtor

Unknown Sacrifice

The earth requires sacrifice

The blood of generations

Spilled to sate the thirst

Women’s children slain

Prayers washing sins away

From the dearly departed

Best dressed pieces

Shards of life protruding

Draining deeply into the mud

Returning to the dust

willing to be sheep for causes

Draped in flags of uniform coffins

Souls unwittingly worth pennies to borrow

Billionaire comfort on widow’s grief and sorrow

Whatever the Face

You don’t need permission to be angry with God
You’re not less of a human or any more flawed
It’s okay to yell, to scream, and to shake
To groan under your burden while your heart aches
To feel like you’re in it, totally alone
The weariness digging down deep in your bones
You don’t need permission to question your faith
To want something different than the cards that have played
You’re perfectly normal to deny what is true
The mistakes that were made that you can’t undo
Rejecting condolences because then “IT” is real
Bargaining, begging, willing to make deals
Wherever your God is, whatever the face
Know that you’re held in comfort and grace
The shoulders you cry on, the prayers that are offered
Are all given up to the ultimate Author

Grown

Flames surrounding a blue figure with gray shadow people watching.
Past life

I have lived in darkness

Reveled in its muck

Too lost to seek out beauty

Too broken to give a fuck

I have succumbed to anger

At the injustice of it all

I’ve witnessed deadmen falter

I’ve heeded hateful calls.

I have chewed away the chains

Of violent neglectful abuses

I have blamed myself and blamed the stars

I have justified it with childish excuses

I’ve rejected ancestral wisdom

To bleed out my unique path

I’ve run. I’ve crawled. I’ve slithered

I’ve ground myself to ash

I’ve built myself a castle

With every grain of sand

I’ve flown through vicious storms

Without a personal command

I’ve crashed and burned a thousand times

Roasted marshmallows on bridges I’ve burned

I’ve picked myself up and dusted me off

Each scar a battle-wound earned

I’ve cavorted with sinners and prostitutes

I’ve imbibed heavily in the drink

I’ve witnessed senseless violence

And still refused to sink

Because that darkness cannot win

It isn’t who I’ve become

It may be where I once have dwelled

But I will never revisit or succumb

The Heir

You were a human being

With a life as precious as my own

But, I’m alive and you are not

To me a path was shown

I’ve inherited your voices

I’m heir to your bright beacon

I will not turn away

My resolve will never weaken

I spend my inheritance freely

With loud pride from your source

I magnify it ideally

Your oppression no longer enforced

The lynching tree will bear no fruit

The crucifixion of branches

Will decay, not take root

It’s time to play with matches