I think of Aunt Becky, how she laid down the shield,
How she stopped warring with the wind and the cold.
She found her quiet under the graying canopy of leaves,
And let the earth take back what it had loaned.
They speak of joy as the blossom born of the thorn,
What is happiness without the ache? they ask.
But my roots are rotting deep in this sour clay,
And the bloom never comes, no matter how hard I task.
I traded one small cage for a wider room,
Just different walls, a different shade of gray.
The heavy rain falls on the garden just the same,
And I am tired of waiting for a sunnier day.
Better to have been a seed that never broke the husk,
Just another shadow on my mother’s fading wall.
I look in the mirror at the ghost of a stranger,
And wonder if I was ever meant to be here at all.
Can a hand hold yours while the heart turns away?
Can a man love the shell and despise the soul inside?
It is a puzzle too jagged for my broken mind to solve,
A cold river where I no longer care to ride.
The forest is quiet tonight, breathing through the dark,
The pine needles whisper of a deep and endless sleep.
Maybe Becky was right to simply unclench her fists,
And let go of the things she could no longer keep.
Just let go,
and be still.