Who instigated the abandonment?
It’s an ugly question
manifests pretensions
both sides righteous…
blinded
When the rage subsides
faith will intervene
and acceptance –
a milestone
will springboard
recover, victims’
voices gaining clarity
intent amended
launching into love
once again.
(Love Cycles first appeared here May, 2018. Resubmitting it for Reena’s Xploration Challenge: milestones. Image my own.)
When did guilt obviate
the need for sustenance?
This deipnophobia paralyzing
heartless stares dredge up
my truth: insatiable hunger
need to stuff down emotion
the certainty that I deserved
the abuse – endless shame
My fork traces the outlines
separates food groups
My mind makes mental notes
of what I’ll gorge on later.
(Deipnophobia is the fear of dining in public. I watched my older sister avoid eating when with others, and then gorge afterwards. I had not known there was a term for it until I came across this prompt. Image my own.)
Life shifts
I compartmentalize
Delusion
out the door
This path –
suffering –
not mine alone
Limitations
have merit
Minimizing
all the rage –
Less expectation
more distraction
Creativity invites
new vision
A playful life
essential!
(For Eugi’s Weekly prompt: playful. Art my own.)
Way forward
but a foggy trail
Who coined these
the Golden years?
Light a candle
will you…better yet
one for each year…
that should illuminate
something…
(Image my own.)
She rises from the river –
a culmination of my prayers
and tears, I suppose
Eyes glow with a ungodly hunger
Is she predator or night prowler
I wonder, frozen from fright
Disinterested in ego, ignoring
perfection, she multiplies
her energy frenetic
I try to harness her,
tame the primal, raw force
fear I cannot house her
But she is no one’s property
moves with fluidity, a shapeshifter
mythical in her stride
Like Eve, she is original sin
searching for deeper meaning
beyond this man-made paradise.
(Image and poem originated in a dream. Not sure I did the message justice but it begged delivery.)
Chronic this pain
finite the energy
fuels each day
Ability to wonder,
marvel at nature –
without limits
Thoughts, like leaves
break away, swirl
float on the wind –
I am at one
with possibility
free to create
(Tuesdays, I borrow from Twitter @Vjknutson. Image my own)
Endings
berry-coloured
sentiments
resting on a shelf
Nostalgia
doesn’t give a lick
about failures
cherishes emotion
No amount
of cunning can erase
the sweet taste
of first love.
(Image my own)
Be as trees reaching
canopy of harmony –
gratitude implied.
(Haiku originally appeared here September, 2019. Resubmitted here for Eugi’s Weekly Challenge: canopy. Image my own.)
I try to scrape history from stone
reassemble words on vellum –
bravado pretending release
Pick my mentors from amongst
the enlightened, willing osmosis –
ego avoiding blood: grit of change
(Art my own)
That time, playing in the muck,
foot emerging without boot,
hopping and laughing
all the way home.
Then, later, on the bus
that car hitting where we sat
the windshield cracking
like a giant spider
blood all over the dead lady’s face.
I thought I’d made it
when my new car had a sunroof
kids riding along, music blaring
But trauma is a spider
Arachne reaching into happy places
and as much as I speed up to avoid her
Fight to disable her attack
she weaves herself new limbs
begins the onslaught anew
And I am stuck in the mud again
no longer limber enough
to dance my way home in the rain.
One Woman's Quest 