Do not try to wrap me
with your perfect edges.
Boxes are not for me,
the wind,
the stars that burst
through time,
through space,
through you.
I am all.
Do not limit me
with your unknowing.

Do not try to wrap me
with your perfect edges.
Boxes are not for me,
the wind,
the stars that burst
through time,
through space,
through you.
I am all.
Do not limit me
with your unknowing.
I’ve seen that image, again.
She sits alone (you could not get any more alone) at her husband’s funeral and we all just sit here and shake our heads, because what else is there to do?
I’m speaking of the image of the Queen at prince Philip’s funeral, but you already knew that. You must have. Who could un see that quiet ache, just another handed to us by the raging depths of humanity.
***
I have hidden from life.
Strike that. I am hiding from life.
Because it wasn’t the Queen sitting there alone that day, it was me. I feel the pain that deeply.
It wasn’t someone else’s little boy sitting in the back of a war zone ambulance, parentless; it was mine. That one slices my heart.
I can’t hide from that darkness, though I want to.
I have to see it.
I have to say it: I am torn to shreds.
***
I cried in my husband’s arms the other night.
I mean I really cried, remembering a time in childhood where I was chosen last of all the children in my class to join the netball team.
I cried, at first, for the poor and beautiful little girl whose heart broke that day. But the depth of my tears came from the realisation that that very moment in time made me the person who will always go in to bat for anyone who needs me. That girl will try her very best to lift others, so that no one else has to feel the pain of being unloved, unworthy, unchosen.
Born is the true beauty of aching life.
And born is the paradox. The knowledge that the other needs to feel that very same empathy-birthing pain, in order to truly see. Even though I’d give anything to protect them from it.
***
You see it, don’t you?
This ache, this wide open ache of humanity, has birthed the very best of us. It has grown our hearts and gifted us the ultimate; the chance to hold and love others from the very core of our being.
But, goodness gracious me.
It hurts to be fully human.
Fully seeing, fully being…
everything.
And with a smile,
she held life gone by.
And love kept her.
Love kept her,
home.
Home, at last.
In the shadow of love
is the aching
of fear.
And I hold you,
love.
I hold you
and your beautiful tears.
There is no need to be afraid of the
not good enough.
This weakness you perceive,
this pathetic softness you scold yourself for
compared to
she who declares herself strong.
Close your eyes.
Breathe and know this.
You are perfection
just the way you are.
For you must know this flimsy frailty
in order to recognise the goddess
who one day will rise within.
It must be.
For without this shadow
the towering goddess inside
would remain hidden to you.
Trust the journey.
Trust in the perfection
of messy life.
If I am not her,
that good and lovely girl in a box,
who am I?
Now that this body is alive
with the energy of all of life,
who am I?
I believe this,
but I believe the opposite of this, too.
I love you desperately,
I hate you just as achingly.
Both can exist within, but how?
But how?
I am bursting fire,
I am calm ocean blue.
I do not understand, and I understand entirely.
For one small me,
these feelings are large.
Too large for me to carry
alone.
How lovely it is
to find home again.
In this home
I am what I am,
and what I am
is a river,
a rock,
a lion,
a ballerina.
What I am
is all I am.
All I am
is all there ever was.
All I am
is all
I am.
There is no feeling
quite like the delicious wholeness
of a lost girl
found once more.
There is no feeling quite like this.
I am all that I am,
and wherever I drift
on the wind of today
is as it should be,
is all that I am.
As it should be
is all that I am.
My body is alive
with the sound of night.
How I hunger for this bliss.
How the melody of a simple tune
makes love to my senses,
and I am whole
like the wind,
like the sun,
like love.