Your worst fears will happen,
will happen soon. And you
will crumple. Will wail.
Will not know how to say hello.
Will somehow remember
how to stand. How to open
a door. How to sit on a chair
and listen to the swallows,
the relentlessly sweet chickadees.
You will have no words, but you will have
your attention, your willingness,
your stubbornness, your
devotion to life.
Your heart, though wrecked,
will not be erased. It will beat,
will beat on, will beat on.
And though I do not understand
how this happens, you live.
You not only live, you’re remade,
just as rivers are remade by rain,
just as wind is refashioned
by the cool of the night. Just as
bones become stronger
after the break. Just as
a story resists The End.
Just as the notes of a song
can be reused to compose
a new song. Oh sweetheart,
you will be not only sing
the new song—a song
equal parts haunting and beautiful—
you will be the new song
and the silence that holds it.
Posts Tagged ‘self talk’
Love Letter Sent Back in Time to Myself Three Years Ago
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged grief, love letter, premonition, self compassion, self talk on July 29, 2024| 16 Comments »
The Beholder
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, future self, self talk on May 7, 2024| 6 Comments »
I was beautiful then, I think,
when I look at the picture
that Facebook shows me
from nine years ago.
I was slenderer, my shoulders
well-muscled, my brown hair
not threaded with gray.
But I remember the day
that picture was taken,
and I know full well
the woman smiling did not
believe she was beautiful,
though perhaps she would
have looked at an image
of herself from nine years before
and thought oh, I was beautiful then.
How is it beauty is something
I can’t see in myself in this moment,
only from a decade away?
So today, when I look in the mirror
and see the papier-mâché skin
above my eyes, the deepening lines
that etch my lower lip to my chin,
the thick hips, the thick thighs,
I try to see myself with the eyes
of myself nine years from now
knowing she would look
at the woman in the mirror
and say to me, sweetheart,
I’m not surprised you cannot see
what I see, how the broken world
has opened you, changed you.
And though it has nothing to do
with your eyes, your hair,
my goodness, you are beautiful.
Transplanting the Nasturtiums
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged flowers, garden, resilience, self talk on July 25, 2021| Leave a Comment »
They don’t like it. For a day,
maybe two, they’ll hang limp
in the beds. I try to talk them
through it, try to tell them
it will be okay. But no one
wants to hear it will be okay
when it feels as if
the world is ending,
especially not nasturtiums—
nasturtiums can’t hear,
which makes me wonder
how much of what I say
to comfort others is really
intended to comfort myself.
In two days, the nasturtiums
will be upright and bright.
And I’ll praise them, tell them
I knew they could do it,
tell them how resilient they are.
Note to My Future Self
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged future, patience, self talk, story on May 23, 2021| 2 Comments »
Please don’t tell me what will happen.
I’ve peeked before at the end of a book
and know how one detail learned too soon
can ruin the entire story.
Not that I wish to be patient.
Of course, I want to know what’s coming,
but this story only works in present tense.
Even when it makes me weep,
even when I’d rather put this story down,
even when I’d like to rewrite the last scene,
please, don’t give me even a little hint.
I am not sure I believe in happy endings,
but I believe in turning the page,
in holding the weight of the book in my hands,
and racing through the text,
my eyes eager to discover what comes next.
Meeting This Moment
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aggression, cat, fear, love, self talk on November 4, 2020| 15 Comments »
There was that night when the cats were frightened
because they saw a feral butterscotch cat outside the door—
and for days they yowled and shrieked at each other
out of fear of what they didn’t understand,
intimidated by what they didn’t know how to fight.
So they fought each other.
Displaced aggression, said the vet,
and she encouraged us to give them space.
Today, when the news is full of butterscotch cats
that come to my door, I understand the instinct
to wail, to caterwaul. I understand the impulse
to fight with someone, anyone, to raise my voice,
to find my claws, to hiss and arch and attack
in an effort to discharge this aggression that pumps in me
churns like a river in flood stage, filled with debris and mud.
And that is when some inner voice,
a voice so quiet it’s almost impossible to hear,
suggests, “Singing is still an option.”
Suggests, “Can you shine in this moment?”
Suggests, “If you choose to speak only love,
if you choose to give space,
how might that change the only thing
you are able to change?”
Still to Come
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged quiet, self talk, stillness on July 2, 2020| 5 Comments »
There will be a time when I will sit quietly
on the chair and feel no urgency to rise, to rush.
Won’t feel the crush of the unfinished list,
won’t feel late, overdue, behind. I may not
even know the time, won’t fear the tick of the clock
as an adversary. Perhaps I’ll even close my eyes
and lean back and let my limbs soften
like honey warmed in the sun.
An idea might come, but I’ll not try to capture it.
This isn’t laziness, no part of me will think so.
No, I’ll revel in the slowness, the unhurried day.
And I’ll remember, perhaps, a time when the ticking
felt like a bomb inside me. Where did it go,
I might wonder, as I pour myself another cup of tea,
the scent of bergamot citrusy and bright.
It’s All Practice
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Corona Virus, new, self, self talk on April 9, 2020| 10 Comments »
Tonight I can laugh at the part of me
who thinks she should know
the right thing to do, the right thing to say.
Meanwhile, the rest of me
wakes up each morning in wonder,
marveling at the quickly changing world.
Every morning this second self practices
how to bathe, how to dress. Even now she is practicing
how to write a poem, how to make breakfast,
what to say to her friends, family, herself.
She knows there are so many ways to do it right.
Every moment contains invitations
she’s never noticed before. Sometimes
she practices saying nothing at all.
If you see her lingering beside the road,
it is because she is practicing how to walk
how to see. She used to know, of course,
but now she can’t seem to take anything
for granted, how to drink tea,
how to walk into a room, it’s all new,
how to weep, how to smile.
End of Season
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged broccoli, gardening, growth, patience, poem, poetry, ripening, self talk on October 18, 2019| 2 Comments »
The broccoli was a disappointment this year—
planted from seed, it had finally begun to sport
small knobby green heads when the frost came.
And though the broccoli didn’t die, it stalled.
Perhaps I fear I am like this broccoli—destined
to grow but never to fruit. Perhaps this is why
I feel such urgency, this need to write faster,
heal quicker, mature sooner, love more. Because
what if the freeze comes? What if I die before
doing what I have come here to do?
There is a part of me who is patient. A part of me
who says, Sweet One, you could not possibly be
any more you than you are right now. She tells me,
You are exactly enough. And sometimes I believe her.
But sometimes I roll my eyes at her and tell myself,
Hurry up, hurry up. I know myself as barren stalk.
I try to will my own ripening. Not once has it worked,
not once, and still this strange drive:
go faster, do it better, do it now.
From Twenty-Seven Years Ago
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged healing, music, nina simone, photography, poem, poetry, self talk on September 18, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Things are gonna get brighter.
—”Ooh Child,” The Five Stairsteps
In the photo, the girl is smiling.
I know all she is hiding.
If I could talk to her now,
I wouldn’t tell her much.
Wouldn’t warn her about
which boys will break her heart.
Wouldn’t tell her which jobs to avoid,
which years will last decades,
which friends will lie, which
day she should pay close attention.
But I would tell her that Nina Simone
was right when she covered The Five Stairsteps.
That things will be brighter.
The young me wouldn’t believe it, of course.
Because the healing hasn’t happened yet,
she has stopped believing it’s possible.
I might could slip that song into her
cassette mix. Even if she didn’t believe the lyrics,
she’d sing along. That’s the way she is.
And the words would land
in the branches of her heart
like the truest lyrics do. And build a nest there.
And when she lost her voice,
and when it got dark,
they would sing to her about the brightening.
Yeah, they would sing. They would sing.
Two Chairs
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged aging, poem, poetry, self talk, younger self, youth on August 20, 2019| 2 Comments »
I pull out two chairs. One for me.
One for the girl who didn’t want
to become a woman. The girl
who, at night, would use tweezers
to pull out any hairs that tried to grow
where her skin had always been smooth.
The girl who tied a bandana around
the small lumps of her breasts
to keep them from growing.
The girl who wanted to believe
she could stay a girl. I know
she would rather be outside
by the lake, fishing. Or exploring
the woods, looking for treasures.
Or making potions out of bark and grass
and berries in her mom’s old silver pot.
But she sits here with me, awkward,
slouching a little to pretend she isn’t so tall.
She tells me she wants to be a poet. How she
loves to play with words. How she knows
the other kids tease her behind her back.
How she sometimes thinks she might disappear
into light when the sun streaks through the clouds.
I just listen and nod. I know exactly how she feels.
I know she won’t believe me if I tell her
she’ll lose the battle with the hair.
That the bandana trick worked, perhaps too well.
That the joy she finds in writing will never leave her.
That she’ll forget the names of the kids
who teased her, but she’ll always remember
what they said. And despite all these tethers,
she’ll learn to disappear into the light,
to give herself completely to the world.
It will be so beautiful.
But for now, this reluctance,
this longing to remain a girl,
this certainty that there is magic
here in childhood that she never wants to lose.