“You are comprised of 84 minerals, 23 Elements, and 8 gallons of water spread across 38 trillion cells. You have been built up from nothing by the spare parts of the Earth you have consumed, according to a set of instructions hidden in a double helix and small enough to be carried by a sperm. You are recycled butterflies, plants, rocks, streams, firewood, wolf fur, and shark teeth, broken down to their smallest parts and rebuilt into our planet’s most complex living thing.
she wished to glue
leaves of color back onto the limbs
unprepared for this season's shift
then frozen morning winds carried
a new consideration her way
could a breathe of chill be welcomed
like an unexpected guest
a dabbled hope through dark days?
she tries this thought on, not her usual
fashion, seeks to understand it's fittings
then opens her dormant suitcase
to laughter spilling out like sunshine
a reminder of past orbits around the sun
she has another day
of changing sky
and many clouds to capture
Noticings are always within reach if your eyes are open. A friend’s phone call, text photo, or cherished smile from six feet away can keep your cup from emptiness. Yet eventually days bleed into one another, months lose their borders, leaving Mondays indistinguishable. Where weeks fall like dominoes. Small routines within repeated walls lead to smaller and smaller thinking. Loneliness swallows you into the basket of its belly. Where over time depression feeds itself with handfuls of separation. It blindfolds your eyes so slowly you that you forget that sight has been lost. You stop moving, reaching out your arms. Until one morning’s shock of sunlight reminds you there is a world beyond this box called myself.
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 