Feeding the Soul

not-quite Journaling, 35

 
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” ~ Oscar Wilde

 black tulips--
real or not, I still
love the dark

 

5/5/2022: My terrace garden isn’t blooming yet, but the community garden on the back of my building is bursting with tulips. My favorite of the blooms is a dark purple one that looks almost black. I also enjoyed the sight of a luscious (and sexy looking *cough*) pink, and a yellow one with petals outlined in red. Spring rains have bejeweled the whole thing.

 

Broken
things crack
heart and will,
or feed the soul
strength.

5/17/2022: Yesterday, while on the phone with one of my doctors discussing blood, exhaustion, pain tolerance, muscle and bone loss, stubborn patients who refuse to take pain killers *cough*, the importance of the occasional treat, the horrors of unrestful sleep, and NY Comic Con 2022, one of my shelves collapsed under the weight of way too many things, sending succulents and books and trinkets and dirt flying all over the place.

After the shock subsided a bit, I noticed that my pine tree succulent had been dismembered, a doll my friend (Gina) made me had been decapitated, and a glass frog my MIL gave me lost two limbs. I took a few breaths, appeased my doctor… and began tidying up the mess. Then, the sight of my pine tree succulent, crushed under a tiny Oscar Wilde book, made me burst into tears. Once the cleaning (and sobbing) was done, I noticed that my pine tree succulent might not be completely gone (the wee stalk still held half a leaf and the tiniest of shoots cradled in the axil).

It’s been a very hard week, physically and emotionally speaking—the broken shelf, a burn on my arm (which is causing my lymphedema to rebel), and an exasperating interaction with a relative seem to make everything much worse. But my health will improve, the relative in question is out of my life for good, the burn will heal, my Piano Man will repair the shelf, and my plant will survive. Life goes on…

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #27: Watching and Witnessing.

Do as You Will, but…

You can put her in your own perfect box,
call her pretty, label her
protected.

You can crack her chest, shroud her eyes
with socially approved visions,
burn your own Revelations into her skull.

Do as you will with a worm, but if there’s a spine... “Run!”

- for Poets and Storytellers United--Friday Writings #25: Let’s Rewrite, where an intelligent, sexy, and unbelievably modest host invites us to take a poem or story we wrote many years ago (preferably, one that wasn’t exactly awesome), and rewrite it. I rewrote a piece first crafted in 2013, and posted it below.

Put her in a manmade box.
Call her pretty,
special, protected,
free of the filth that cloaks the unthinking.
Once her faith follows your fib,
wound a porthole into her wooden chest.
Let stagnation ooze into her eyeball
burn revelations into her skull.
Help her brain boil in the molasses of rotten hopes
of forever heavenly white clouds.
Always whisper of salvation, of the truth
that lies eternal,
or until a sheep cares not to be mouthless. 

photo by hannah grace, on Unsplash