All that you need
is ripe
here
ripe now
for the being.
If you would but
open wide and let your mouth say
I
so your indomitable
will
can lead you to infinity.
All that you need
is ripe
here
ripe now
for the being.
If you would but
open wide and let your mouth say
I
so your indomitable
will
can lead you to infinity.
What is the sound of resolve?
A crackling
Fanned flames of frivolous hopes framing the doubt dressed in darkness?
The firewood of punctuated ululations severing ties that leave
you on your feet but do not feed you on your toes.
A scraping
Rubber licking asphalt one grain of hard-fought grey after the other?
Barren boots warring against the smattering of wet skin on
fiery hard packed ground
Toppling time and again because you knock yourself down as often as the world does.
Like nothing
Silence so absolute with a world not watching
Breath held, waiting interminably for the other shoe to drop
When you know you never intend to let go of the laces
you cling to; because you are in control.
Bet it looks like a shaky breath-
Arms crossing, folding into one’s chest
Mouth agape, teeth bared, eyes focused
Above the “insurmountable best”
And it feels like a reckoning
Like fear and faith, or fear alone
or an emptiness – a will wilted, but alive
Whispering secrets of your unmalleable core;
Bone to unshakeable bone.
So. You were bested.
Was it not temporary? Will you not stand again?
Did you not get back up? Did you not survive? Did you not breathe again – deeply?
Don’t you just hiccup now at the thought?
At the time, in the very beginning, it seemed that all was lost.
It was not.
It held together as most things tend to do, when will is the glue piecing them through.
Save your victory lap, though. Get to the end and that was not the end. It was a part of the journey. That
Was not the beginning. You remember the beginning.
This was one stumble.
One out of a great many, parsed out over the journey.
Convoluted, hard,
Not an easy route.
Save that which you can, and remember to breathe, when you can.
Deeply.
Just so. And when you consider it later, I want you tempted to hiccup at the thought.
Close your eyes and savour it. But just for a moment.
I need your eyes open to continue down that road. And to know you will not die.
It will not kill you. Not till it is your time. And then, even then, you will breathe- deeply
As you go.