Through my years
I have sustained
Many acts of violence
The intense strain
By taking a knee
Absorbing the pain
Standing, taking step by step,
Until momentum changed
Memory and ache.
But this won’t stop hurting.
My children feel the weight
I watch them move differently
Unaware they now compensate
For the thing that changed all things.
The grief infiltrates
And I can’t mend what’s torn
I can’t take
Many more of these days
And nothing can make it better
If You don’t redeem it.
My children are all sick.
The house is a mess.
My marriage is comfortably empty.
My boss seemed upset.
I don’t speak the same language
As the ones who wear Your name.
I’ve been alone so long,
It’s all I know, how I must remain:
We sing songs of You
As the Rescuer, the Restorer,
And I am grateful You do.
I’m ashamed to ask, is there more, or…
Or do I take small bites of today’s
Daily Bread
And remember the real Bread of Life
Is best enjoyed after I’m dead?
It’s all grace either way
And I am grateful for today,
But I’ve fallen on hard times.
I miss the tenderness
Of my children in arm
Cradled and cooing
Soothing their alarm
With song and kiss.
I have been bereaved
Of my motherhood
While they live
Please see all I’ve withstood;
I am greatly aggrieved.
I brushed my hair today.
I went out into the world of chatter-
I talked to people I care for,
About subjects that matter-
I laughed with my children.
I ran errands overdue
I ate only good foods.
Underneath and out of view,
I wept.
I felt so awful, I didn’t know how
To travel into the next heartbeat.
But on I forged in caravan
Of breath, and will, and fumbling feet,
And some kind of social gravity,
Like chaotic steps emblazoned on a dance floor
I fumble through graceless
Stomping feet, unsure
If it constitutes a dance.
Knowing You are leading,
And I’m in Your hands.
She was so thin,
Bones and stories
And jokes.
She survived my world,
My weighty horrors,
So thin.
Everyone laughed when she wanted them to,
Fell silent when silence was due,
And I thought
Her frail bones made her seem so pitiable,
Some little bird who needed nestling,
And a worm or two.
I sat on my haunches, my stout paunch
Introducing me,
And I look so hearty,
I look so durable in this new flesh
I’ve worn for a decade
Covering my frail bones.
She was so cool, making soda pop jokes
Over the scenes of rape,
And starvation.
She ate nothing, but her entourage
Ate every single word, every inflection,
From her birdlike hands.
I ate them too, but couldn’t swallow
All the jokes, the laughter
Spliced into my horrors.
She laughed delicate swirls,
Fleeting and dissolving
Like thin snowflakes.
So thin.
I eat comfort, answers, procrastination,
And store them on
My hollow bones.
How I yearn for lightness,
The unflinching faith
That lifts the unblemished face
To smile at the fists of time.
I recall laughter
Bubbling from deep soul,
Nothing to dampen, nor console
Boundless joy.
My days got old.
My thoughts, so heavy,
Watch children skip steady
On feet of hope and wonder.
I am atrophied
Or else I would sing,
Dance, lose everything
To skip in lightness again.
viewingcamelot 