Photo by Mitchell Luo on Unsplash

It’s amazing, the power in a
word

sticks and stones break my bones,
words will only kill me
single phrases, barbed poison
or the absence of them: silent death
where no one hears your soul shriek

If I could give you special vision,
all painted in the aftermath of sentences,
you could see all these things you’ve said to me
and see each way they’ve hurt or healed
Looking at the tender half-healed scars,
you’d weep, apologetic–
but not enough
never quite enough

But even so, I’ll take these words of yours,
fold them up gently
(they have made me who I am)
and I will create with them
little paper birds and flowers,
something beautiful, soothing
And then I’ll give them back to you,
these words,
all folded up in pretty Japanese shapes
(my heart, my soul, my fears as one)

I have one word for you:
forgiven

NOTE: I wrote this in high school, and even though it’s a bit too on-the-nose, it struck me as being particularly appropriate for what I’ve been through in the past 2.5 years. So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to write about that situation directly, but the wound must be drained in order to heal. I will write about it soon… but not today. Today, the pain is still too near.

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain

Some days, her heart is
red
and it breaks
open

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain

Hallowed silence surrounds her:
fallen stars flickering amid mist-frosted grass
and autumn leaves in their myriad faded hues,
bruised petals and baubles strewn
at the base of each cold marble plinth–
all the familiar remembrances,
the bittersweet farewells she knows by heart.

She wanders ghost-like among these tombs,
an unseen witness to mute devotion and grief,
carrying the holiness of this singular night
within her heart until time circles back upon itself,
an exquisitely inconspicuous ouroboros
that brings it all around again,
the gifts the living offer to the beloved dead.

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain

She walks on wounded feet,
carries white roses to the willow
by the pond on the hill:
three roses,
the number of those lost or those left behind–
she can no longer remember which.
This is a sacrament;
the willow is her cathedral,
the bare earth at its roots her altar.
She scatters ashes and tears
into the silence of sunset
and feels all the forgotten words take flight.
The long years of silence are at an end.

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain

On the nights when God is silent,
she curls up against the dark,
her breath a thorn embedded in her throat.
At last, all the questions spiral down
into the gradual oblivion of sleep.

She knows silence
is its own answer, too.

This post originally appeared on Beyond the Yellow Door.

Beyond the Yellow Door - Living Passionately with Chronic Pain