Poetry | Mental Health | Mindfulness

And packages of hate

White hot bundles.
Anger tightly wrapped
with many lengths of twisted twine.

I held this burden close
unwrapped it often
and examined every reason.
I remembered well.
Justify.

I held each piece of blackened stone
and sharpened glass.
Turned them over, one by one,
and deftly honed their edges.

I invoked a recollection,
the close intense examination
that reveals the pain.
Savour.

I recalled the wrongs
and sliced open half healed wounds.
I swam deeply in the seething pool
and swallowed daily doses
of reminders and remembering
choking on the bitterness.

My inoculation,
a ward against hope,
on guard against love.
It shut me down.
Lock.

I dreamed a revelation, of wasted years obsessing,
crippled by the sour bile of my choosing.
A change from righteous fever
of angry justification.

It brought imagination,
a new consideration,
another way to be.
Reveal.

I walked my weary bundles
down a different path
I held the wounded parts of me
with gentle hands,
gasping at the tender touch
I had withheld.

I sipped a soothing liquid
that quenched the blackened vessel of my heart.

Summoning the light,
I breathed intention.
I held it in my mouth,
as a treasure,
a small smooth stone that was a word.
Forgive.

–

Breathing Words — A Year of Writing Together

This poetry anthology includes several of my poems:
Waiting for Magic, Fly With Me, Lost, Release, Forgive

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