There is sadness in the corner.
A beautiful sadness that calls to me, many a day, and I can’t help but follow. I can’t help but wonder why.
When life is ever so dear, and joy is found sweetly in the eyes of the ones I love, why is the sadness in the corner? When the rest of the room is flooded with colour; the corner.
Why is it aching, why is it grey?
Whole and beautiful life is here,
but the corner.
Why is there sadness in the corner?
But I am the wind.
And my soul is alone
as it blows through the jars
of neat and tidy life.
Oh, the aching.
For, home floats free;
I will never be bound.
Can you not see?
I will never be bound.
And my heart cries,
lonely.
My heart cries.
Lonely.
There is a tear in my soul.
They want me to smile,
all the time, they want me to be fine,
this world.
But I am not
(though I am.)
There is a weeping tear.
A wound unhealed and breaking
ever deeper,
every day.
I will tell you this:
I am fine.
And I am,
six colours of the rainbow, fine.
The seventh colour.
It is a golden tar.
An aching soul,
searching.
An aching child
within the hardened walls
of a happy one.
My soul held the music, and we were one.
There is no other way to describe it but that heaven exists on earth, and for several moments, I was there.
There is a beautiful tender song from Aladdin, where Aladdin sings about being ‘just a poor boy,’ unwanted and unloved.
When I was a child, this scene broke me in two.
It still does because it speaks to a place deep within.
A place that’s says:
Oh, my goodness, I see you.
Now, as I listen to the song there is a new sort of beauty to its lyrical tenderness.
I feel the music, it tells the story as deeply as the words.
It is as if the music itself is conscious.
It is as if the music itself cares.
The way it swells with empathy. The way it rises and falls and twists with aching.
It is heaven on earth.
And I am here, with beautiful music.
And the beautiful love it sings to me.
How beautiful to see your tears
and know your soul
has been kissed
by music.
The darkness of life is a wonderful teacher.
I’ve been there a time or two,
and now I say, ‘no’.
Lovingly,
with fire and ice,
I say no.
No, thank you.
No. Thank you,
no more.
Such a lovely relief,
the roaring breath of certainty.
The trust of a self who deserves better
than they have given.
My worth is here to stay.
My love is mine to give,
not theirs to take, and take
and take.
Let others play in the dark rooms of maddening life.
Let this girl fly,
a darling wonder,
into the sun beyond it all.
Safe.
Loved.
And perfectly capable of asking for love,
respect
and home.
Home.
How beautiful it feels
to finally tell them I am home.
My
soul
knows
this
song.
My heart is open and bare,
laid out before the world again.
Their pain is mine: I give it loving arms.
I speak their truth.
I burn with mine.
They say these are words, but I know they are more.
I call them life, achingly true.
Here I am, the softest rose: bruised but sweet.
And waiting.
An open bud, thirsty for the dew.
It’s who I am, the rose, I know.
What is this dew to fall on me?
Is it love? This feeling, deep and strong.
For a world that doesn’t know itself,
a world too scared to open its heart and see?
Do not tell me I overthink.
I feel
for you.
I feel.
For humanity.
One day,
she sits alone,
and understands it all.
That she’s never been alone.
That all this time
their pain has lived within her,
pain she never asked for,
pain that is not hers to bear.
Clear air is what she knows she is,
not charcoal-grey squalls,
nor black-rimmed mud.
A heavy reality,
a scared, scared world
drowns her in the darkness
of humanity’s shadow.
Until she removes the soot
and clears the air
once again.
I knew it would take me there. To the place beyond everything, the place that shows me, really quite beautifully, who I truly am.
I can’t remember the last time I watched Legends of the Fall. A very long time ago. A lifetime ago, you might say, and if you did say that I wouldn’t argue with you. I last saw the movie before I had truly lived. Before I had truly ached. Before I had truly felt loss, and the echoing stillness of life’s fragility.
Last night I watched the movie through new eyes, and it tore me apart. Very beautifully, it tore me apart, but it tore me apart all the same.
It reminded me of the depth and softness of who I am.
It reminded me of the beauty of the human connection.
And it reminded me why I write: to feel and to help others feel, too.
Thank goodness I watched that movie, last night.
Thank goodness.
brooke-cutler.com 