A Little Bit Of Sunshine

I know we've met before On the distant shores of time The tides were higher then Our smiles were wider then We were wind and sea The heavens within our reach Though we never did see So content we were, on our little beach How changed from your former selves Now reduced to shell You who held the power of the sky  Now holding a breath  And I whose frame stretched wide  Now terrified of depth  Will we ever find the place  where we met  And retrace our steps on the sand To live without regret Only time will tell. 

My lips are cracked from misuse Throat burning with the truth I swallowed whole and unchewed A terrible case of indigestion With every unspoken question I might be driven to drink  In effort to shove them down  If love were a balm, I have not found the right one If kisses were redemption, I'd be renewed by now  Imagine my surprise when  the answers were found On the tip of my very own tongue. 

I grew up hunched over, like a question mark.  Baked in uncertainty.  The tiniest hint of a smile, with vacant eyes. My mother was an exclamation point, sharp, relentless and unyielding. She would pierce me anytime I tried to stand up tall.  You find it endearing when a child walks for the first time, looking for your eyes. "Am I doing it right mama?" they seem to ask.  But I never want my kids to walk through life with their heads backward, searching for my approval.  Instead I want them to look inwards, ask themselves... what is my truth? What do I want to do?  And forge their own path, not try to rewrite my own.  It may be out of left field, and this is the difficult part, it may be the most outrageous idea you'd ever heard.  But it least it were true.  I believe the inner self cannot lie.  Even if they miss the mark, which, of course they will. At least they're aiming in the right direction. 

"These women were invasive  and blunt, but in the darkest times they knew how to show up." Teatime was a ritual, more rigid than early Sunday mornings and  the rim of our mothers' church hats When the china had been polished and the floors scrubbed clean The parlor was filled with mamas and aunties and the smell of citrus.  Their perms and pearls, glistened in the sunlight pouring through the aluminum windows  They prayed and gossipped in equal measure  For they had very few pleasures...  Fingers fussing over loose threads A bout of good weather   Someone's daughter or other graduating school Strangely, they seemed to relish bad news For it gave them something to do  And how they wanted to do , to be of use Be it a prayer circle, or a casserole  But on that unremarkable afternoon, Amanda's scandalous affair would have to do.

Our heroes fail us.  Because they must.  We need to see our heroes bruise and bleed, become weak Fall short and stumble bare their teeth in agony Their heads which once stood tall, hang low  The shoulders upon which we cried,  long since dried Their earnest promises, forgotten and unkept  Those steady fingers we once held,  should slip off the pedestal we built We must outgrow our idols and surpass our mentors We must outclass our teachers And deliver our preachers Then, only then, may we look inwards,  to the voice that whispers And find there our very own truth Once we finally break out of the confines  of someone to look up to. 

(artist unknown)  She doesn't know it, but her life is a painting The walls of her home are on display  The chipped teacups and plates, reimagined as authentic and quaint Aristocrats study the pattern of her curtains and solemnly nod, "Must be a metaphor..." The riffraff look at the stains on the hardwood floor and shrug "Had those before..." She's on tiptoes, her darkened soles exposed Arms thrown up high, head tossed back.. she appears to dance Some say she's on the cusp of yawning  But she is reaching...for something unseen, Uncaptured, unwritten, beyond the picture  She doesn't see the beauty of her own life Is taking two steps at a time to get to the other side of her painting She doesn't know she's in one The greatest painting in the world wasn't the Mona Lisa, but Da Vinci's face while he painted it: Uncertain, frustrated, unaware of the greatness that eminated out of his fingers. 

We were all too busy looking for the heart of the matter That we missed it, plain and bare upon its surface No one dared say it ...but I suspect it wasn't ugly enough To rouse our interest We were waiting for carpet stains and cigarette butts We were looking for mould in the undergrowth The ugly truth is, truth wasn't always ugly Where there was brokenness, certainly was beauty Where misery, also jubilee Not despite.  But each part of one whole... you wouldn't understand Just looking at one side

Today I do the darnedest thing : I accept myself completely   I feel brave, free and a little silly As I lift my head and kiss my skin. I stretch my hands and land on something solid and unmoving : I am worthy It holds me firmly and leaves no room for questions.