This flow of time
Leaves rings behind
There to learn
From rearward reckonings
Patterns of existence
Wrote stories
Rendered in forgotten stone
One small soul sundered
Moments lost
To oblivion
‘Til some sad spelunking
Anguished excavation
For traumas buried
Reveals the source
Of present sufferings
And with such insight gained
Arise small hope
For healing and recovery
Occluded skies
Reflected in a secluded cove
Cold, still water
With the clarity of glass
Now I
In this diffuse, scattered light
See the depths in crisp detail
A bed of granite
Obscured by sand and silt
In this, I see myself
The bedrock of me
Beneath a sediment of memory
And these beneath the terrible weight
Of experiences so fully repressed
As to be rendered transparent
So I stir up the bottom
Cloud the water
See what patterns emerge
To reveal the dark matter that is the forgotten me
The grasses and shrubs bow and flutter
On a windswept fen
Long Range Mountains leap from the plain
Testament to the crushing power of colliding continents
And I am reminded
Of a small boy
Heart rent through and through
By harsh words and hard gestures
It’s alright, boy
You bent like the grass
And rose up like the mountains
There is no small beauty in that
Be soft
She said
Like velvet
Bend with the wind
Like grass
In the field
So when others
Touch your life
They are not cut
And if they lean on you
A little hard
You do not break
All this broken glass
You wear
From your past
It harms you
As much as those
You love
And what is not
Already broken
Is brittle
With the slightest pressure
It shatters
Into shards you wield as weapons
Learn to be soft
Before you crumble
To no more than sand
Or only when
You are naught but dust
Will you ever be soft
The little window
In the northern wall
Through which the lovely light falls
When the drapes aren’t closed
As water falls
In fractured cascade
See trauma’s pain
Fragmented mesh
Of memory and behavior
Slim tenuous tendrils
Strewn across twin darknesses
Of dissociation and repression
Shattered shards of self
Unanchored and adrift
Idyllic setting
Empty seats
New normals
Under development
I look back
In order to move forward
Bring the past
Into the present
Record the history
So I can release it
Carry the memory
Leave the emotional toil
Of glories and traumas
In the wake
Amber glow
Inner light
So long as I hold the one
Let the other be revealed
Now as an adult
I am dominated by the fear
I learned as a child
Pix to Words 