Tag: Freedom

Mythological Growths

Cycloptic serpent
scorched deep
into my being,
color of decay
not even attempting
to camouflage
into my resilient green,
laying eggs,
disease breeding,
growing larger,
but still unable
to see,
for at my core
is also my heart,
and it bleeds
in light.
You try
to grow more eyes,
but this love
inside
will always
render you
blind,
not Karma
but what is right
finally
for I have falsely seen
too clearly
all my life

your lies.

The exorcist has arrived:
self-love.
Parasite,
good final bye.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Pitfalls and Wings

I remember you describing it like trap doors.

That unexpected drop we don’t see coming. It’s one thing when you are watching your footing, placing your soles carefully around the eggshells, having been conditioned, trained, skilled, at moving around in this on-guard, defensive way. It’s another when you’ve just started to have confidence in the spring in your step upon trusted ground. I was outdoors, in my favorite place, when it happened this last time.

A trap pre-set by a predator disguised as a friend. Another very unexpected fall. No problem. I’m used to it. I know what to do. It’s all very logical. Except when I go to grab onto the root to begin the climb, it opens another hole. I unexpectedly drop again. I reach, I lift myself, I lift myself, I reach for the wrong root again and another hole opens… I don’t understand these. They come from deep within my own self. These were not set by him. There is no logic; I’ve tried every pattern. Eventually, I make it out.

And then another pit sends me plummeting.

I’m thinking about these pitfalls today, sitting upon a rock in a favorite dress on a beautiful day, revisiting the scene, the trap pre-set especially for me. I find myself thinking the all-too-familiar question for each of us, so universal, so personal: why me?

I honestly do feel I should have been spared by my higher power. I’ve paid my dues. I’ve done my time. With Trauma. But what sense of entitlement and special treatment is that? Not to mention the whole free-will clause which others can use to interfere with my own hard work and desires.

So I do now reflect on the possible reasons. Does God have yet another lesson for me to learn, yet another trial to overcome? How strong does He want me to be?! And why?… When I think of this, I do not feel like a victim; there is very little woe is me. I actually get a bit excited that He is preparing me for big things. Like I am a chosen one. And if ever I were to be in training or to serve, I would definitely want it to be for Him! I feel empowered. I feel an ego I never thought I had. I always thought I was selfless to a fault.

I did it. I think. Again. I’ve lost, yet won.

Are you proud of me, God?

I think, too, about how much I have control of and how much I don’t. I know how we react is everything, our miseries often self-induced, self-perpetuated, the way we keep ourselves trapped and prisoners; we look down sometimes and see the cuffs and chains are unlocked, and we scramble to re-secure them. Why?

Is it all fear?

If so, are we really trusting God is with us, sees what is ahead? We cannot get there if we keep re-locking ourselves when He keeps setting us free.

My past is my past. I have freed myself from it. I must shake the dungeon dust fully off. Perhaps that is the purpose of these new wings.

I feel the breeze of your and His love…

Thank you for always believing in me.

I suppose with wings,
these pitfalls can
no longer sink me;
I’ll keep my eyes
forward in these skies
and focused
on the portals
to my dreams.

Words and images ©LauraDenise

May I?

May I never lose my way
to getting lost,
may I never resist the urge
to leave it all, 
may I never shelter my face
from the storm, 
may I never let my arms fall
in the downpour,
may I never fully wash off
the grit of the sand, 
and may I never be restrained 
by clock or human hand.

May I never negotiate with my soul: 
may I never let anyone close the window. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

The Language of Wildflowers

I have always been drawn to intimacy,
that of the petal, the shell, the bee. 
Grand, sweeping panoramic views
have trouble impressing me. 
Everyone else lines up though to see,
so I release the guilt to the benevolent breeze
while I sneak away from my party
after posing in their pictures
to get low upon the mountain surface
to hear the gentle, pink, silky whispers.

My first two vacation poems of the same subject,
the world-renowned postcard as a blurred backdrop.
You can take a body to a different location,
but you cannot take control of a soul’s vocation,
especially when it is spiritually connected
more so to the underfoot details overlooked and neglected. 

The stories of nature that fit in the palm of my hand
speak to me more profoundly than the grandest canyon. 
I have never been one to follow the crowds. 
The bold mountaintop bloom whispers another route. 

I cannot take it now: my father is guiding this tour. 
But I will never forget the brief shared encounter

with the single wildflower

that found me in the clouds
and allowed me to recenter myself. 

Wild Bound (With Audio)

Natural material
but man-constructed
walls me in
instead of fences,
I breathe best
in more open spaces.
Wildflower ascends,
climbs up the border –
two-by-fours frame
her bold yet soft colors,
star-shaped for a reason,
skyward bound, rooted
in treason, restrained
by seasons –
toward freedom,
back to the wild
shunning the restrictions
they keep trying to place
upon her style.

I will follow,
eventually,
perhaps at the end
of the lease.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Hope Is A Red Balloon (With Audio)

Hope is a red balloon. 
To dream is to release,
To let the heart again believe:
Benediction granted wings.

Hope is a red balloon. 
To fear is to release. 
Self-shackling to the ribbon needed
For freedom to be achieved.

Hope is a red balloon.
But with passenger and knapsack attached,
It becomes the passageway
Between spirit-death and life hatched. 

Hope is a red balloon
That may burst at any moment
Over deep, dark uncharted waters 
With drowning a likely occurrence. 

Hope is a red balloon.
Faith is to ride it into the winds
Knowing the trajectory
Is calculated and adjusted
by Him,

Delivering to safety,
Granting the dream.
Because you held fast
To Hope’s string. 

Poem and image and recitation ©LauraDenise

Event Horizon

Part three of an unnamed work in progress. Here are parts one and two: My Star and A Coat of Sunshine

Time to talk about the song.

When my son last visited, he played this song a lot on our Bluetooth speaker while he and his girlfriend and my daughter stayed up all hours playing board games (while I tried to sleep in the master suite of the ranch on the other side of the door). It’s a song he really feels, like the movie. At the first notes, when it comes on the radio now when he is not present, I immediately change it. To “control” my sadness. I try to avoid thinking about him and his sadness and his addiction, him as Bradley Cooper in the movie. It just hurts too much.

It was the mention of the movie and allusion to the song in passing on social media that stemmed this writing spree in me though. I connected with a fellow English teacher-poet on Instagram where I usually just post and go without actually socializing. I am one to put a song on repeat for hours, for days, to feel, to lose myself in the zone, to somewhere it seems I am being led, but only hitting repeat on max volume on my earbuds and a lot of patience simply lingering at the portal is necessary. To let myself feel without thinking for once. For a long while…

I listened to the soundtrack while sweating through yard work. Then I watched the video… and cried. What a sad movie. One of his favorites, of course. I could never remove the movie from myself now. I didn’t know that that Instagram post I “ran across” by someone I did not yet “follow” would lead me here, to pouring out prose, whether or not I post it or lock it up. I knew it was going to mean something though. I believe strongly in paths crossing for reasons.

I need this. To let my fingers fly free across the keyboard in prose again. To feel the release that comes from that and also through music.

I connect the most in songs to the non-words, the soul eruptions that exceed alpha-translation. That is what pain and love is, after all. And the fall. For me, it is the rise of the wailing “uhs” and “ohs,” and in voices like Lady Gaga’s and Calum Scott’s (“Dancing On My Own”).

In “Shallow,” that point is the moment of free fall. And free fall… could end or not end in a limited number of ways, albeit in limitless places, could be initiated or not initiated for so many reasons, could be the beginning or the end. For me, regarding all of this, it is that push to the edge at the end of my marriage, when I could no longer breathe, and my panic-attacked heart raced as if it were going to give out once and for all. The 2:42 point of no return is when I leapt, screaming on the way down that I have had all I could take, not being able to see the bottom, leaping entirely with the final no-turning-back point of faith, faith I would crash through the mirage of the surface into the “anything more than this.”

I am happy to report, it was the best jump I ever made. The one that saved me. I didn’t want to have wings. I just wanted to crash through it to the other side. Full speed. Once and for all. 

I am also keenly aware that others feel that same desperateness and take the leap to leave this life altogether. The song’s narrator makes it clear she will never meet the ground though. I feel a need and calling to string nets for every jumper off course. So they are forced back up and can only pass through the same portal as me and her, only with faith and courage. In the more that is here in this life.

May angels escort each at the edge. To safety. To life. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo_efYhYU2A

Building a Good Day

Happy Sunday!

It’s a good morning.

Because I have the amazing blessing of deciding how I fill my day. What a gift. What freedom. What power. What will I select from the generous menu to construct this day?

First, I choose mental and emotional peace. What brings me balance? Writing. Nature. God. Companionship. I have all of those at hand daily and indulge in them all daily. The absence of any one throws me off my axis. In the absence of a significant other, I am full from the companionship of a dear friend.

Second, I choose work. Whether it’s my paid career or just the endless chores to maintain a small home and large yard, I need to be productive, contribute, do good work and feel good about the results.

Errands and personal business matters on the other hand…YUCK! I despise that. I always procrastinate and dread adulting in those matters. Maybe it’s the creative in me that is tortured by such free-spirit-sucking monotonous tasks. I’ll clean my own house, do my own yardwork, but for sure would hire a personal assistant for that other stuff. Including shopping of any kind. (Shudder.)

After internal stability and productive work, I need to fill my heart daily with love and laughter. I am a lover by nature, so that is not hard. A little cuddling of a pup, a little interaction with humans I love, a little reading of heartstring-pulling writing, and I’m full.

Laughter is tricky, too easy to forget to add. You usually need another for that (even when I crack myself up, it comes from messaging a friend). You need another to make you laugh, whether on hand in person or digitally or from something funny created by another: memes, jokes, humorous writing, sitcoms, etc. Laughter is simply one of the best parts of life. Let’s never forget to put effort into including it!

Well, those are the morning thoughts. Today is a new day. I can largely make it what I want it to be. Thank you, God, for that gift and blessing and freedom and power. I hope I am making you proud by becoming, embracing, loving who you made me, who you made me to be.

I’m off to start my yard work. Make it a great day, readers!

❤️ Laura

whenyousurroundyourselfwithbeauty(☝️From my picture quotes I used to do. That’s my daughter, when she was younger. 💕)