Say your words,
don’t let your voice whither inside.
Weariness can talk you into thinking that your voice doesn’t matter.
The past may try to convince you that your voice doesn’t count.
Resignation will yell,
“No one will listen any way, so save your breath.”
Say your words
clearly and just loud enough.
Say them for yourself and for the one
that isn’t willing to be the first to speak,
but can and will be the second.
© Ali Grimshaw
sometimes a regret comes back to life
emerging as a poem.
morphing as it translates into words
pain blossoming
on a single stem
each petal overlapping
some parts me
some parts you
forming an image fixed in time
an elixir of us
I drink in
to set us both free.
© Ali Grimshaw
Discovery Challenge – Shared Journeys
What does it mean, the number you are?
Pounds or password,
23rd in line before your turn,
zip code, blood pressure, days traveled,
the years you have managed to
stay alive or times you have kept your mouth shut.
Texting mishaps, trips to the store, loves lost.
You may think these numbers
have power to direct your life.
Upside down thinking at its best.
This code of numbers is yours alone.
Deciphering it requires desire
not a Hollywood mastermind.
You have always known the way out.
© Ali Grimshaw
When the questions hurt,
air thick with despair.
join together.
link your hearts.
© Ali Grimshaw
You may believe that I am with you
facing the sea side by side.
Yet I am hidden away
oceans from this place,
traveling without a suitcase.
My vessel left behind.
I don’t need a ship to carry me
to the places I am visiting.
© Ali Grimshaw
I will sing you comfort when your voice forgets the notes.
I will sing you a clearing in the forest,
a place to feel the warm sun on your back.
I will sing you courage for days when you
need to hear the music again.
© Ali Grimshaw
Days crammed full
each minute a block on the calendar
filled to overflowing. Blocks tumble.
The dam bursts
spilling forth an unimaginable surge
carrying you away to a place
beyond time. Float with it or
swim toward shore?
Surrendering
to the current,
this is new.
© Ali Grimshaw
As he walks away,
the unknown grows inside me,
a tightness inside my chest.
His graduation is a forced exhale and I
breathe in the flight to come.
It was an illusion that he was ever mine,
from the start. He never belonged to me.
I was always ever the warm nest
from which he would someday fly.
Alicia Grimshaw
Dedicated to all of the parents of graduates. Yes, part of your heart is stepping out into the world to touch the lives of others. Let it go. Part of it will stay with you forever. What a privilege to experience this amazing journey of expanding love. Congratulations.
The path we share sometimes forks.
Here a place to pause among trees.
Conversations in layers like leaves on the forest floor.
Shadows arrive, shake us with views of separate routes.
I kiss your hand with love as I release it.
Fly above the forest if you are called to.
I will not let you deny yourself
to keep us on the same path.
Together we can travel
only if
you will still seek.
© Alicia Grimshaw revised version 2017
Between the pain and sorrow
in a very thin space
is a new beginning
a sliver of light that can only be seen
if you dare to look into
eyes that belong to you alone.
© Ali Grimshaw
flashlight batteries - Ali Grimshaw 