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.

Forgive the Dance

Please forgive the dance,
but it is what I do –
one step forward,
then slide back,
shuffle and lose the rhythm
and start again.

Always reaching forward –
heart securely tucked in place –
but there is something embedded,
cellular – that invites the struggle

and so…I dance –
yesterday a warrior,
today the fool,
tomorrow only knows

multi-faceted,
roughly cut,
a gem
of an undefined hue,
I will always try again.

(Forgive the Dance first appeared on One Woman’s Quest II, September 2019. Image my own)

Visible, Yet Hidden

I am visible, yet hiding –
balancing a vitality-blocking
disorder that renders me
inanimate, repulsive –

Who doesn’t flinch
in the face of deviancy?

Creativity obsesses
grasps hope that courage
will annihilate the beast,
that resourcefulness
is all it takes to overcome –
Hold on!  it cries, nestled
deep within the grief –

Oh, you think you see me,
but I assure you, my friend,
you do not – I am rebel,
lost in isolation, vulnerability
fantasizing revolution –

Resolve trapped between
the exaggeration of infinite
possibility and the unremarkable
defence of compulsion to survive –
thrive even, if spirit was not
so aghast at current setbacks.

(Image my own)

Nothing is Lost

The garments of past successes
are not lost in life’s shuffle
but reapplied with new panache

What once served to polish presentation
now accentuates gained wisdom –

service is service
whether salaried
and noteworthy
or humbly given

I apply my passion to a higher cause
and am rewarded with space to grow
and companionship along the way

Discovering that life experience
bears worth – a liberating
and empowering awakening.

(Image my own)

Harmonics

6:30 a.m. alarm sounds.
“Time to wake up!” Compliance commands.
“Just a little longer,” Sensibility suggests.
Guilt, like an incessantly annoying child
tugs on Conscience:
“Come on; there’s lots to do!”
Body does not respond.

Sleep wins
and dreams come:
homeless,
relying on friends,
no food,
backed up toilet,
children’s wide eyes
fearfully imploring:
When is this all going to end?
Guild propels a return to consciousness.

8:25 a.m.
“Up and at ’em! There’s a good soldier!”
Compliance attempts to be chipper.
“There’s really nothing more important than rest,”Sensibility suggests.
“Can’t lie in bed all day!” Guilt counters.
But body is MIA.

Dreams resurface:
Setting up house in a thoroughfare
people coming and going, oblivious to intrusion
co-workers indifferent,
eyes scolding – convicting…
Guilt mutates to rage,
Body chokes, gasps,
reaches for inhaler
sucking in desperate air.

11:11 a.m.
“That’s it! Up you get!”
“No! No! Rest is needed!”
“The day is wasted! There’s no getting it back!”

“Silence!”
A new voice emerges.

A collective intake of breath.

“Breathe,” comes the message. “Just breathe.”

A unified sigh.

“And breathe again.”

Tempers cool, and emotions begin to settle.

“What’s going on?” Guilt wonders.
“Just trying to stick to routine,” Compliance defends.
“It’s always been this way.”
“But she’s ill now,” Sensibility adds, “and there needs to be concessions.”

“Breathe,” the voice reasserts, and all sigh again.
“Just be in the stillness of the moment.”

Stillness has no voice.
Its language is compassion and infinite,
infinite wisdom.

“…and surrender.”

Compliance sobs with the release of such enormous obligation.
Sensibility gratefully gives over the burden of responsibility,
and Guilt…well Guilt is little,
and happily snuggles up to Unconditional Love.

“There, there,” Voice soothes. “Isn’t harmony so much better?”

Body concurs and rises out of bed.

(Harmonics first appeared here September 2014, five months after illness left me bedridden. Image my own)