Raining, Snowing, Sleeting Men

Maybe I don’t want to feel so very

heavily

staggeringly

much

anymore.

And maybe I deserve a break.

Everyone does, right?

Maybe I’m riding the waves of all the emotions that drive through me,

like a weather pattern with no pattern.

I am their hostage, their unwilling passenger.

I ride along and hold on for dear life.

I bask in the sunny days and feel sure I am holding the reins at last,

but then the storm front gathers just off screen – I feel it coming sometimes,

and fold in on myself in defense against its battering forces,

but more often I am blindsided by the sheer onslaught of anguish or desire or despair.

Years of practice and introspection have led me to the only peace I can find in those times –

to remind myself that every emotion is temporary.

But when I’m buried under 8 tons of heartbreak-filled dirt and rocks,

it’s really hard to remember that little ray of hope.

But that is when I have given the reins to someone else,

voluntarily surrendered the ownership of my own heart.

I don’t know how else to love –

all in, so fully open and welcoming that I am easily torn to shreds by my own out-of-control imagination.

Closed

I stand at the door to you
my words spilling out
and piling up so high
I am unable to see past them.
If I knock,
you will answer reluctantly,
so I will not knock.
I will choke on my words
so that when you open the door
I will have nothing to say to you.

Impression

The heaviness of a world sinks into my chest
I peer up at the dim light,
far away at the top of this hole.
There is a list,
somwhere along the root-and-soil crumbled walls,
a list of reasons to climb out.
But it's dark
and I can't find where it starts.
I hear distant voices,
indistinct words -
life going on
life not needing me
life of those I've disappointed and failed.
They are on the list,
and many others,
but the list just feels heavy now, too.
It is so dark and soft down here.
I'll just stay a while.