Author: mlfc15

Frozen

Trembling at the weight of this

Molten doorway

Initiate me

I can hold back no longer

This magnet pulling me forward by my hair

I fall into the abyss

I’ve seen this one before

A mountain sunrise accompanied by the Ave

This time directed at me

Do I dare become the sunrise?

There’s no mistaking where this will take me

A volcano of joy erupts in belly

I was made for this moment

This choice

It’s time to become

Dissolve

And fall together

This eternal spark is ready

To join the only flame

It Begins

The mud thickens

But my strength is thicker

Years of wandering this wild

Have built undercurrents in me

That cannot be undone

I can’t be stopped now

Not even by myself

Slowly now I cut apart the barbed wire

My hands are safe and skilled

But that doesn’t stop the slow

Steady

Trickle

Of blood down my waist

It can wait

Eyes to the stars

The Northern winks

The moon shimmies in place

Creation silently shouts it’s joy

For my trust

The road is long indeed

But the fire inside burns hot

And easy

She’s got my back this time

Forget burning bridges

I burned the whole city

Nothing left to turn back for

My joy fills up this moonlight desert

Who knew the victory of utter defeat could feel so wide?

That all the right failures could bring unfailing peace?

Every rock echos back my praise

The cacti and I rejoice in our resilience

The barrenness and I swell our voices together

That nothing could ever satisfy

But the emptying

A bitter medicine for any

One that has become rather sharp

Between my rib bones

After tasting not-alone

It wasn’t intoxicating

Just right

Grounding

Clarifying

Relieving

One sip made the world stand up straight

For the first time ever

“This was the dream I didn’t dare make conscious.

This is what I was born for.”

Over as quickly as it began…

But I can’t forget the taste

And now

Every moment of exile is laced with a pain

I was once numb to

A knowing that really,

It doesn’t have to be this way.

But so it is.

I tie up the loose ends

Bandage the wound

Move along down the road

It doesn’t matter

I won’t let it

Still the hemorrhage won’t stop

Bleeding from my very consciousness

Too tired to be angry

To ask why

I hunt for something strong enough to stop the bleed out

I must complete this

This road I set out to travel

So how?

Is this red salt trail

My legacy?

How can I hold others up,

With legs so weak and empty?

How offer hope through bloodshot eyes

And parched lips?

Answers evade my steady bleed into the night

Silence wraps her warm arms round

As I await

The rising

She lives in my blood.

When the lights go out and there’s no one left to talk to

When the road dead ends

When all seems forsaken

I get lost in her embrace

She holds me in her boughs

Serenades me sweetly

Gets me all sticky, dirty, tired

A child

She reminds me of the endless wisdoms of my kin

Bees

Darkness

The trees so willing to speak their knowledge

To ones quiet and humble enough to listen

Finally I feel at home

At one

Words not necessary, but welcome

She tells me,

“I too know death in my bones

My body feels your heartbreak and fury

Over all that has been taken from you

I stand with you in solidarity

And teach you endless renewal and hope

I teach you that what flows through our veins

Cannot run out

I teach you to be upright and flexible

Broken and noble

Relentless and yielding

How to strike beauty and terror to an equal depth

For brothers they are

I teach you to hear the sound of growth

To bear nakedness and death with dignity

Your footsteps reverberate my heartbeat

Our breath is one

Your laughter feeds me

My seasons adorn your body

My elements teach you oneness of being

My harshness teaches you discipline

And that a peaceful heart is the only thing worth possessing

Rest here daughter,

And learn

What you are.”

• 

• 

Hey love,

It’s me, your old friend. I’m just checking in on you.

I’m worried about this big thing you’re starting.

How do I know you’ll follow through?

Is it okay to be happy? Successful? Are you sure you’re not missing some giant loophole?

How do I know you can handle success without forgetting the earth you sprang from?

How do I know that you won’t forget who you are and why you started this whole thing when people start to fall in love with you and your work? When the pain is no longer there to remind you?

How do you even know your motives are pure?

Can I trust you to take the wheel?

To rest when you need to, and to push through when nothing matters but the mission?

How do you know it’s going to work out, that we’ll be safe, when I can’t see past the next moment?

Are you sure you don’t need me to bite your tongue and close up your throat and make your feet stop so you don’t do something you’ll regret?

What if you hurt someone?

What if we lose everything we’ve worked so hard to gain, what then?

Shouldn’t we stop while we’re ahead, not rock the boat, play it safe?

Dear Resistance,

Thank you so much for your letter, it warms my heart to know you care so much for my safety and well being.

I promise to take FULL responsibility for designing my life down to the commas and semi colons.

I know what I believe and how to put it into action.

I know how to alchemize pain, fear, and failure into a more powerful magic than you can imagine.

And yes, I really care enough to do ALL the work so you can truly rest, knowing that every little thing has an irreplaceable, precious role in the journey.

Love,

Me

It’s okay to be tired, love

You waited thirty years

To finally tear through that heavy

Translucent wall

To emerge from thought into being

To decide something

Anything

You had to choose

Lose

Gain yourself as you did

And I am so proud of you.

You chose beautifully.

Fervently.

From the part of your soul that laughs at the idea

That there was a choice to make

“Can’t you see?

No amount of self restraint

Reason

Detachment

Is able to stop the great spirit in you

From loving what it loves

The way the wind loves the mountain.”

And then you broke.

Carrying your tears to drop them in the sea.

You didn’t stop (the wind does not shirk her duties)

You broke like a wave on the shore

Again

And again

And again

And every time you did

Your touch became warmer

And more gentle

You lingered in the trees

Listening

Remembering your roots

Allowing the flow of life to stick to your hands

Allowing grief to bring you down to rest your head on the ground

Where you could caress the flowers lovingly

Remembering sacred

Remembering small

Slow

Awe

Finally surrendering your body

To the sun

• 

• 

Humanity has a sword named

Insatiable

That can cut you apart

Or sew you together

Depending how you hold it

If you turn it inward

Release the illusions

And anoint this moment

“Enough”

This work

“Food”

This pain

The answer to that prayer for a larger cup, a purer vessel, a higher mark, a sweeter finish on every sip of

“ordinary”

Bless the hunger for love that lingers bitterly

“The road”

Rejection

“Protection”

Emptiness

“Sweet rest”

Then the blade guides you down

Along the muddy edges of the infinite

The unnameable

The asphalt trail from your head to your heart

Landing you before the door inscribed

“Home”

I’m so glad I stopped

Expecting things of life

Stopped trying to get miracles out of vending machines

Love out of people

Why should they have more left over than I do?

So glad I stopped trying so hard

And decided to let faires and swaying grass and rays of light

Take me down all the roads

I never gave myself a chance to notice

So glad I laid my tear stained eyes to rest

And asked for new ones

Ones that see how the dying give life

How the stars are reaching for my hand to dance

And the darkness is ushering me in

To share it’s secrets

With an audience of one

I’m so glad

For my new ears

That sense the crackling electricity of the Mystery

Drawing maps to new worlds

Behind the walls

Of an ordinary day

The mouth that tasted only earth

Is now full of the flames of love

That are always tumbling out of everywhere

Taps on the shoulder

Epiphanies

Quiet moments of burning

Incensed

Joy

Hands clenched in gratitude

Fingers running along a life

Designed perfectly

For this tumbleweed heart

The ebb and flow pulls on my limbs

Am I the moon or the sea?

Is the longing that lives here even mine?

Or are you reaching for me from inside my own body?

Who are you?

Are you the wind ever hungry and seeking?

Or a hollow cave awaiting high tide?

What shape is my Lover longing to take?

What is rest?

Will I ever know her as roots know water?

How much longer is my heart to roam in exile?

What is knowing?

Where is land?

Even as I wear in this sack of skin

And find it as I do, more difficult to call her beautiful

I find it easier to call her “home”

Not the one that haunts me down quiet streets

But the one that holds me at night as the waves rock me to sleep

Gratefully I trace the weathered wood of this little boat

That hold me safe and true

No matter which way the tides may turn

Gently I tug the ropes

Slowly unfurl these sails

Solid, unmoving ground is a distant memory

At best

Grace flows under me

Cradling my being in her swaying hands

Blowing through me as though I’m not even here

I may just evaporate into the sunlight

Become the mist that hugs the waves sweetly

Or maybe one day these feet will step into the sand

And I’ll find that I was here all along

In some form I couldn’t recognize

One that’s more weighty

Than anything made of matter

Maybe I’m the thing that chisels the air

And parts the waters

And while I wait for knowing

I’ll fold myself softly

Into the curves of the sea

Winter has come.

Perhaps there is enough wood but perhaps

There is a journey to be made

The barrenness sings of it’s fruit,

Whistling under it’s breath

The cold nips and plays like a puppy around my face.

A small fire is burning on the hearth.

Day after day I gather sticks from under the snow

Running as fast as I can

Trying to pile them high enough

To grow this little dragon belly

I am helping my mother

Bring spring to these hearts

We women work in darkness

Our faith is our only possession

And from it we feed the world

Like an invisible breast

Keeping milk dribbling down the world’s cheeks

I have left behind the strength of summer’s fire

Content to weave life out of my weakness

To put my body down at the feet of darkness

To set my heart before the abyss

To work

And wait

I’m beginning to learn 

What happens

In the losing

I count my losses like prayer beads

Caressing my fingers over each one tenderly

Food came first

One after another slipped away

Movement followed

Until I was not so slowly losing my ability to walk

They came in avalanches 

Losing my ability to function at all

Living in a quickly fragmenting reality that faded

Into pure terror

Losing my children who then appeared to me as aliens, as monsters 

To my broken mind

Losing relationships

The ability to sleep

To speak

Read

To wash a dish

Or chop an onion

To sweep the floor

Or fold laundry 

To drive a car

Listen to music with words

Even nature and beauty, my oldest loves

Terrified my brain for a time

Everything I loved dearly I lost to fear

And as I have slowly pieced myself together with love

I find what I have gained

An ineffable patience 

Always laughing at people who think they are an inconvenience 

They don’t even know what that is

Kindness

That will never run out 

The pleasure it brings in giving it out

Only grows

The ability to treasure 

The tiniest moment of peace

In the storms that still rage within 

From time to time

To feel okay beneath heaving grief

Broken dreams 

Horrifying realizations

To know I’ll be okay

When the corridors of the unknown

Stretch on for years

I now treasure

An easy stroll from one room

To the next

Waking up happy

I can relish the taste of food

For the first time ever

I find deep nourishment 

In the ability to discipline my children

To simply witness them

And know that somehow

By the grace of God

These little moments 

Of love

Wonder

Joy

And pleasure

Are always enough 

I’m so grateful to know that what is given

Is often first taken

Grateful for this eucharist

That falls from trembling lips

And a broken heart

“thank you”

For the soft nothingness that remains

When I’ve lost