Author: VJ

Permission to write, paint, and imagine are the gifts I gave myself when chronic illness hit - a fair exchange: being for doing. Relevance is an attitude. Humour essential.

Parental Passage

Carefully we construct
security for offspring,
add luxuries to entertain,
accommodate growth
with additions, play host
to revolving-door friends.

And yet, we are graded
on performance – met
or unmet expectations –
help up against a stack
of other super parents –
silhouettes of perfection.

Still, we celebrate growing
aspirations, sprouting family,
ignore the slanders, and ease
into age with a tad of kook,
or wild inappropriateness –
all expressions of our love.

Message In A Bottle

My iced tea declares
that risk-taking equates
with freedom, and I cheer
at the synchronicity of a sign –
like manna from heaven –
that empowers my journey,
confirms the righteousness
of present life choices

a sentiment struck down
by the absurdity of
assembly-line bottlers
stamping encouragement
on bottle caps,
sealed and packaged
for mass consumption –
a blatant attempt to capture
the magic of a message in a bottle.

 

Mountain

I navigate sharp twists,
confront rough trails,
steep slopes, swoon
at dizzying heights,
feel my frailty –

this path is for rugged,
mountain-born,
those accustomed
to the sheer immutable
force of  rock –

and yet, my lens
tells a different tale –
speaks of shadows
shifting, witnesses
mutations of colour

describes a giant
whose facade reflects
the day’s passing light,
demonstrates compassion
in earth’s stillness.

 

A Toddler’s Tears

When it comes to caring,
I’m a pro – engaged,
wholehearted, well…
except that my toddler
self joins in, and no matter

how proper I try to act –
she is such a fetching child,
bright, inquisitive – she
distracts me from purpose,
gets me off-track, and I hate

being behind, and anxiety
acts up, and the subject of my
focus departs, leaves me solo,
abandoned like the baby,
memories of saturated diapers

unattended to, and the raw
scratch of tears unanswered,
and I’m not trained to care for
inner children, essentially
overlooked, innocence tainted.

Open To Healing

Open to healing –
delve into the subconscious
create a space for inspiration.

Ignore limited capabilities –
no offerings are meager –
enter with pure intentions.

Embrace new starts
have faith in ability
be spurred into action.

The Self holds the answers,
creative expression is the key.
No expertise required.

(I first wrote this in August of 2015, a year and a half after being diagnosed with ME/CFS. This was likely the lowest point of my disease – it is encouraging to look back and realize how strong my spirit was back then despite my condition.)

 

It’s Not Pretty

I drag my marriage
through childhood,
past my mother’s critiques
and sister’s insanity,
expose the woman
my father longed to be,
strip them all down
and parade them
full monty,
our sordidness
splayed across the floor
like shepherd’s pie
smashed into linoleum –
a mess of madness
and emotion and
cranked out fables:
denial served up
as acceptable fare.

I am obsessed –
driven by compulsion
to cleanse the sticky,
rotting muck oozing
through the cracks
of our faulty foundation,
need to sanitize floorboards,
unearth explanations
salvage what thread
of sensibility remains
before this orgy
of dysfunction
derails progress
drags my childhood
through marriage.

Reflections

How do we recognize truth
in what is reflected back to us
especially when intrinsic knowing
has been domesticated out of us –
servility replacing preservation?

We are drawn by an insatiable
thirst to drink from the well
of human connections, require
acknowledgment, appreciation,
cannot bear to conceive of a life

of loneliness – we are social,
travel in packs, affectionate
souls conditioned to co-habitate,
habits instructing outcomes –
would be lost without mirrors.

Lachrymose

A dear soul slipped from life’s grasp this week, leaving a hole in many hearts. Diana’s words, here, say so much more than I could have, still raw with grief.

Diana's avatarThe Wandering Armadillo

so frail now

your fingertips in mine

supported gently

parchment paper skin

venous rivers slow, tepid within

..

as the sand slowly sifts

i squeeze

i try to halt the final grains, yet

this maudlin hourglass only drains

to somber clock tick

sentry gated soldiered seconds fall

the war is over

all is lost

that is all

..

a last dawn

this last day

as curtains part

your light slips away

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