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.
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.
I’ve toed a lot of lines in my life. I’ve toed them recently. I will toe them again today.
My spring out of bed has become inconsistent. My sleep, interrupted. I wake to report to that line again, and that is a different kind of waking. To take my shift to relieve my unconscious self to defend my inner sanctuary boundary-border. Again. It’s exhausting. Physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s not what I was designed for.
I am more than this.
I was beaten when they breached my outer border. But I’ve since recovered. Now I stand resolute at the final white-picket fence, last patch of wildflowers inside. I feel strong again. Weaponless by choice. A pacifist maybe.
The dust of the corporate stampede settles as the hooves come to a halt. And here we are again. At the line. I toe the dirt with my bare feet, my dress hemline soiled. My head is not bowed. I took into eyes. I look to the heavens. I look back into the eyes.
I am passionate. In all things. I used to think it was my blessing and my curse. But then self-love took hold and merged with my faith in loving, divine, individual creation, so now I think, though I’m still on the journey of discovery and understanding and potential, that my passion is only a blessing.
I taste the indignant feelings rising, mixed into the saliva of my mouth. It is not fear that causes me to swallow it back down. There is no fight or flight in me now. There is only strength and unhurried contemplation. I weigh it all. I need to free myself from the weight.
I hear your voice. And I still myself in hopes of His.
It is silent enough inside me that I can hear the whisper of each petal the breeze gives voice to. There is indeed a great injustice here. A war of the world and the self. A war of the ages. And the individual never wins. I feel I was born to take this stand, though I know it will make no difference in the war. It is indeed personal. But it is mostly the morality that is part of my blood, flowing in and out of my heart.
I will bow gracefully. But not for them. For me. For my wildflower patch.
The two-headed serpent will reside among us. Its poison can no longer make me sick. I will see to it that my flowers flourish despite his presence, slithering so deceitfully all around us.
The corporate stampede stand-off I have stirred in my rebellion retreats with patronizing words I pretend I am too ignorant to perceive.
I turn my attention away from them and him, and begin again to love, to mother,
to teach.
The dirt returns to white sand, the waves resume their soothing music. I return to showing my flowers how unique each is and all they are capable of becoming, come the May winds….
It’s been sunny and seventies, and the seasons have not so much been confused as they have been seemingly just leisurely mingling, amused, some stalling, some joyfully letting go; nothing in the South rushes though.
Like melting cubes of ice in tea, we take it sweet and slow down here. It tickles me pink to have the mix sprinkling personal messages so clear.
Today started differently, gray with a bit of nip in the air. Certain trees partaking in autumn are almost now bare, covering the patio in a bland blanket over stone, which made the flowers I did not grow even more the focal point of my windowed soul.
I smiled for how they have become so deeply rooted in my journey. Marking my heart’s pages, so many petals and leaves held so dearly, imprinting with their colors and scents my most powerful untold stories.
Turbulent tempest rises from within, mere earthly matters malignantly breach the borders where the spirit lives, tears mix with the salty sea, Wind whips through as the harbinger singing, assures His army is near my shore. I see the Beacon from above coming for
s h i p w r e c k e d s o u l s
ON ITS WAY TO me. Never was I lost, never forgotten, never in jeopardy of drowning. These truths I knew which led me here, the S.O.S. of my heart He need not hear for He is ever-knowing, always inside, but also right on time, my location always known, sometimes granted though the visual signs that my soul is not alone. The Light so comfortingly warms, and I am homesick no more.
I suppose somewhere along the way, this became about me, this once person conditioned to inwardly mistreat, neglect, bury prematurely at sea,
too busy keeping them afloat in puddles, sacrificing my soul for others,
in the lows between lowers in that life unstable, vows before God to remain (abusive) spouse faithful,
the escape-clause contingencies blurred, repercussions lingering in the years after,
children ten years apart, and always children, I keep on giving, Silverstein tree down to the trunk, instead of remaining to be sat upon, I leave my roots to carry on,
re-sprouting from acorns and seeds to reach the end of land as a sunflower, brazen yet desperate, in the sand to be plucked by a youthful hand
and sprinkled into the surf for the mermaids to collect and bring to the site of where I left myself and resurrect
from Davy Jones’ Locker the Heart of the Sea still alive in its keeper: me.
The ducks and swans gather to greet at the pond where I used to weep.
Donned now in floral dresses and locks long enough to dance freely with the breeze, (he always said neither looked good on me…) the reflection I see is another plot twist in my ongoing story
with an ending yet to be written but full of God’s golden glory, His daughter’s strength ever-growing.
Somewhere along the way, somehow this did become about me. Another struggle lifted, another soulful healing.
In the setting sun, I reflect upon the journey and look so forward to the fulfilling of my legacy.
I will never drown, for you can only hold me down so long, years but moments in the eternity of dawn.
Hope unconditionally floats from the buoyancy of love.
This is my story, long overdue to be self-sung.
I actually do like to sing those soulful songs. (He always changed the station if I even began to hum…)
Laura Denise 