© Alicia Grimshaw 2018
Your bones scream to rest
an anvil on your chest
no dawn comes lightly.
Invite the monster to sit with you
it gains ugliness with denial
put your arm around that which
you don’t want to hold.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2018
“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it.” – Jenny Lawson’s book Furiously Happy
“If you expect me to answer my own question, I confess that I do not know.”
They call me an adult. Yes, I have learned to make spaghetti sauce, to drive a car. I have mastered some dance steps and can write a concise email response (using spell check to avoid the embarrassments of the past.)
But what have I really learned in my days of clouds passing, night thundershake and the revisiting of another spring? Days of scarlet fever, owning mistakes and reimagining?
With another ring around my trunk, adding layers of curious, I know that I know less with passing time. Like paint peeling off an old house I am more than one color. I live as a revolving door to exit and enter, each time with a different view.
Growing up I thought adults had all the answers, lived in comfortable sureness. Shocked disappointment crashed down when the truth broke through with no answers in its hands.
Why didn’t mom tell me adulthood didn’t come with all the answers.
“She had only one explanation for this fact: things have to be transmitted this way because they were made up from the pure life, and this kind of life cannot be captured in pictures or words.”
1. Illusions by Richard Bach
2. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Written for the dVerse challenge, Bridging the Gap: Select two quotes from two different books. You decide whether you want them recklessly random or slightly/significantly more intentional. Then, construct a poem using one quote as the opening line and the other as the closing line. The blood, sweat, and tears will come while filling in the space between. You may modify the quotes to fit your poem’s rhythm or rhyme scheme, but just be sure to provide the original quotes, authors, and works in a postscript.
According to her internal judge
she was never up to par,
even when crossing the finish line first
accomplishment slid off her skin. Always
gripping, holding on for acceptance.
Yet perplexed separation pained her days.
She wanted belonging
and never wanted to fit in
knew it would change her.
A part broken off to float away irretrievable.
No one else stayed after class to console the bullied teacher.
It never occurred to her not to.
She saw those faces on the fringe,
secretly knowing she was an outlier as well.
She let go of the kinship rope
not to lose herself.
© Alicia Grimshaw 2017
I will embrace you
in this house of circumstance
walls cracked and cratered
plaster fallen failures.
Shelter you with my being
through the unavoidable crumbling
a steel umbrella in the storm.
I gave grown capable of being
the shelter, like the arch of
protection you once were
for me. I am solid
even as the erosion continues
with you under my wings.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
The 5:00 am thud,
my front porch newspaper.
When will this sound disappear
from my listening landscape?
Like the comfort
of sounds, predictable life
before the robots were made.
When hands held headlines
faithful objects, a lifeline
of interpretation on paper thinness
read in gentle openness
played at morning speed of drowsy slow
accompanied by the aroma of coffee.
The illusion of a day with
news within my control.
© Ali Grimshaw 2018
“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men [and women] die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”—William Carlos Williams
13 Ways to Support Poetry – guest blog post by Dick Allen – A great article with specific ways to keep poetry alive in the world.
National Poetry Month – Fall in love with a poet.
late
broken
incomplete
misunderstood
unable to prove
“If you would just try.”
disappointment in their eyes
defeated layers of books and papers
accustomed to going unnoticed
“Why can’t you be …?”
“Why didn’t you?”
just below the line
left far behind
deep sighs
“Again?”
shame.
© Ali Grimshaw
This poem is shaped like a bell curve to represent the people who have endured feelings of shame for not performing in a way that someone deemed as success.
You may have forgotten
I have not.
The strength of your heart
to carry you across the hard times.
It has never left you to swim ashore alone.
It never will.
Believe.
Thinking in reverse
months tip, like dominos
to revisit that summer day.
Longing for this cleansing pool,
offering of chilled calmness
encircled by stone, here I joined
the river of slow movement,
pulling at my rapid pulse.
Plucking the notes ever slower.
Heartbeat dissolving
until I was
just being
water.
© Ali Grimshaw
My closed eyes wonder
have you been waiting for my call?
Are you one who waits?
One who waits to be
chosen
invited
picked?
Are you one who anticipates hopefully
rocking chair movement, back and forth
not going anywhere
waiting to open your door
find me standing before you?
Are you willing to be the one that shows up
arms wide, inviting in
the unprotected in downpour, ghostly gale,
frosty fear anticipating rejection?
Are you willing to hear the
no?
Are you open to the yes?
Which is more frightening?
© Ali Grimshaw 2017
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 