Always Have Been

When the voices inside,
whether yours or theirs,
start to rise up and disguise 
the lies as truths,

look to the sky
and see the ray
of light shining down
on false transparencies 
refracting all the
beautiful colors
that make up you.

Don’t use artificial
looking glasses,
for the perpetrators
can too easily
hide behind them,
your doppelgänger included. 

See your reflection instead
in the windows of the souls
of those who genuinely love you:

the portals will be clouded over
for only non-love pierces
with ulterior motive
and unwilling hypnosis.

The only one being used
when the truths are real
is the messenger revealing
how God sees you
as his beloved creation.

You are precisely as He 
has lovingly with purpose
made you. 

You are more than enough. 
You are perfect in His eyes. 
Don’t let unreliable narrators
convince you otherwise. 

You are the story. 
You are also the pen. 
You are the blank page
today again. 

Don’t succumb
to writer’s block
by others injected:
each day you leave
the space unmarked
is another win for them. 

To be held in captivity 
is only a matter of the mind:
there are no chains binding you.
However messily you need to, 
just write the first line 

of today. 
And do it again tomorrow. 
Until you remember
where it was you were headed

before getting derailed, 
detoured, delayed…
You have the power
to begin 
the change. 

Pick up the hose
to see the rainbow;
don’t wait for the next rain. 

You don’t need to search.
You are the gold. 

You always have been. 

Sea Dance

Barefoot atop the deep waters,
white dress and wild tresses flowing,
sunken-ship cemetery of the past beneath,
I twirl in this present moment. 

The sea is mine
as my dance floor,
and I skim across 
to my pick of shores;
I explore, I vacation, 
not searching, just jubilation
of losing
worries and fears,
exaltation of the lightness
of the lifting of those stormy years,
each moment an eternity
to get to the next,
each stepping stone
sinking with each vine grasped,
no beanstalk discovered
to bring me to the clouds,
only faith each day
for decades
of a better tomorrow.

That tomorrow is today,

hence the head-raised dance
in the sun and in the rain,
embracing with wide-opened arms
the achievement of having started
upon this horizon
I only viewed from the beach.

The stepping stones still sink.
I just realized the only missing factor
was to fully 

believe.

They were never needed. 
Self-love was the only key.

I was always worth it. 
Eventually, I fought
for me
and this
dream.

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

See Past Shells

You are not broken.

We all have our chips,
scabs and scars,
stories hidden,

the search and strive
for perfect,
itself a myth;

you are perfect
as is,

each soul a treasure,
measured not by appearance
or the illusion of wholeness,

for we are equally complete
when love washes over us

for no shell is enclosed,
though we shrink within,

open and in rotation,
vulnerable hearts
search for a fit.

The ocean knows
and sings the wisdom:

each of us beautiful,
not just enough,
but the only one for another
and in God’s hands, cupped. 

Poem and images ©LauraDenise

The Journey

The journey, they say, 
is in itself the key;
I’ve been down
every wrong road
multiple times
it seemed,

but to surface, 
I wish I could say unscathed, 
with the treasure of me
in this mirror 
now held
sacred, 

I’m hesitant 
to lay blame
on my past,
for who I am
was definitely shaped
by every shadowed,
obstacle-strewn
path, 

and the key
that ended up being me
fits perfectly
into the lock
around your heart; 

I look forward
to every step
we now get to take
together,
journeying to meet our Matchmaker,
hand in hand,
to that eternal
start. 

Poem and image ©LauraDenise

Critical Heart

Sometimes a heart

simply wears thin,

the muscle becomes tissue

paper, translucent,

 

and the wind

and the rain

threaten to tear it,

but as long as its color

holds permanent,

 

the heart

will mend

itself

again.

IMG_8937

 

It is the heart that darkens

that is a critical matter,

its pigment abrasively stripped

from harsh despair;

 

it becomes ugly and overpassed,

judged and seen as an outcast

until it believes in the masses

and caves into itself at last.

But even the most charred heart

can grow back its color,

and though love is the way,

it is not through the kiss of another.

 

Only the withered bloom itself

can ignite the reverse process

with self-love,

 

and if but one beholder

can convince it of its beauty,

that heart with its scars

is the one that grows into the greatest

 

love story.

 

Every heart is worthy.

img_8534

Poem and images ©LauraDenise