Even in the deepest darkness
You will not reach for the light
You would rather drown in your pride
Than consider you may not be right
-gws
Rather
Tag: Grief
The Lost Lost Boy
Oh Peter!
You have lost a Lost Boy
He never made it to Neverland
He couldn't find the second star on the right
And he ended up in the Alleys of Midnight
Alone and scared
No one could hear him
No one would help him
Everyone he trusted let him down
Oh Peter!
As he grew up
(For the Alleys of Midnight
Forced everyone to grow up)
His spirit grew dark
His shadow dominant
He waited for rescue that never came
And his tears turned him bitter
And his bitterness bred a rage
That would quake the feather
In Captain Hook's hat
Oh Peter!
Can you help him?
Can you rescue him?
Can you take him to the forests
And play follow-the-leader games?
Can you show him how to
Think happy thoughts again?
Can you resurrect his inner child
By splashing in the Mermaid Lagoon?
Can you help him believe in hope again?
-gws
Unlearn
I need to unlearn your touch
The sound of your breathing
Next to me in the dark
I need to unlearn a lifetime
Of everything about you
-gws
Liminal State
I exist in a liminal state
A being
And not a being
Grief ebbs and flows in king tides
Emptying me
Submerging me
Stealing away my breath
With its pressure changes
Feelings grow in question marks
Within my hollow chest
Proliferating like fungus in the fall
Inside of my being that is not a being
Emptiness overflowing with nothingness
Destruction and restoration
Warring to fill the immeasurable void
Shaped like my cremated heart
Pulsing with unfathomable aching
Testing the tolerances of
My being that is not a being
It is surreal to be and not be
To experience the reality of the question
Posed by Master Shakespeare
In rhyme and sonnet so long ago
To understand that one can be both
A being and not a being
-gws
Do Not Confuse Grief With Guilt
A friend said to me,
“Remember you didn’t cause it.
You couldn’t have prevented it.
You have nothing to feel guilty for.
It is okay to grieve.
There is much to grieve,
But do not confuse grief with guilt.”
I did not know how much I needed
These words until they were spoken.
-gws
Step Back
Everyone who has ever loved you
Have put their hands up and
Taken a step back
Now they are looking at me
Wondering if now is when
I will finally do the same
-gws
Rage Fire
The truth has lit a rage fire in my belly
Where there was guilt and pity
There is now a simple aching coal
Burning so hot it challenges the sun
-gws
The Rocky Path
I’m walking between worlds
Both in a nightmare
And waking from one
Navigating the rocky path
One footfall at a time
Calling on my ancestors
Those women who each
Did the same in their own way
As I step out of darkness
Into the healing light of freedom
-gws
Shattered
It echoed of all the things that have caused me the deepest pain, and with nothing different or looking to be different, I think the final piece of shattered glass crashed to earth. -gws
Grief
Grief smothers
It slows minutes to seconds
Linear experience is arrested
And time becomes one, disconnected moment
Followed by another disconnected moment
Like a damaged film reel
Jumping from one stepping stone to the next
Each leap a gaping chasm
Light too bright
Sound too loud
Words have no meaning
Colors leeched of their vibrance
The body feels both weighted down and untethered
Feelings resonate acutely beneath numbness
Does life still make sense when it feels senseless?
Is it possible to live when one cannot seem to draw breath?
Grief feels like drowning
Tumultuous and savage
Full of ache, helplessness, desperation
Roiling and hollow
Swinging like a pendulum from feeling too much
To nothing at all
-gws
Words Wishes and Wisdom 