healing

The Best Medicine

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 6 Comments

I’m not usually a fan of pictures of me, and even less so of posting them, but I love this one.

During a recent shoot, the sublime photographer Joseph Moran made a comment that got me laughing as we tried (to almost no avail) to get some outside headshots on a very windy balcony.

He captured a spontaneous and free part of my personality: one that gets much less life-space than I’d like in my very adult days.

In laughter, I connect to a very important part of me – an uncensored, unedited, unsocialized part. I become childlike again.

It truly is “the best medicine.”

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: laughter

Inner Mentor

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 3 Comments

There comes a time

When one has to become

One’s own mentor

When the voice you seek

In the sea of voices

Is your very own

And that time, I think,

Is the time you grow up

And that time, I know,

Is the time you become

Who you really are

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: mentor

Lost Treasure

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

All that I held dear

Was washed away

By the tsunami that was you

My heart, my mental health

My easy laugh, my joy

My positive outlook

My belief in goodness

My trust in my own body

My trust in my own soul

The winds have long since died down

My body has healed from the twists and turns she rode

I sit in the quiet aftermath

And wait to see what of me

The tide will wash ashore

Will I recognize my essential parts

Or will I pass them by as detritus

Not knowing their inherent value

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: tide

Lush Life

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

The darkness descended

The blight that you brought to my lands

Soul-grooves

Worn into my heart

Rivulets of salt-tears

Eroded the once-pristine landscape inside

But I’ve started a conservancy

To build my self up again

Renew, rebuild, regrowth

One day, no traces of you will remain on my terrain

And the wind will carry the seeds of my heartlands

To populate fertile fields so that love will spread

And color the world a thousand shades of beautiful

Inspired by The Daily Post Word Prompt; rivulet

Rescue Wanted

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ Leave a comment

I’m an angry cur

I sit and lick my wounds

No longer on a chain

I stay put and don’t run off

Tremble at the feet of my abuser

Long since a ghost: no more a man

Yet his switch is alive in my body-mind

Can I rescue my self

Get myself to a shelter

Learn how to trust and to love

Retrain the cower out of my body and soul

Lose the haunted look in my eyes

Inspired by The Daily Post Word Prompt: cur

Soul Tattoo

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

Allow me to assure you

You are intricately woven into my psyche

I’ve taken elaborate measures to leave you behind

To erase the traces of your affect on my personality –

On my life – to little or no avail

It seems that I carry you, etched into my soulskin

You are colored into the lines of a million needle sticks

Just as a pickle can never become a cucumber again

I am forever altered, forever changed

And yet, that is not the end of the story

I have decided to turn the design you’ve created

Into a whole new pattern of my own creation

Just try to recognize yourself in it

Allow me to reassure you

You won’t

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: elaborate

Cancellation Policy

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

Allow me to return

All that you bestowed upon me

Including, but not limited to

A cautious nature

Fear of people

Embarrassment at being seen in my enthusiasm

The tendency to be cynical

Body self-consciousness

Shame

Self-doubt

Feel free to do what you will with these

I no longer wish to live from them

They were never mine to begin with

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: bestow

Soul Sister

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 1 Comment

I feel you there

In a parallel Universe

The me that I haven’t lived up to in this one

Did you steal away my confidence

Maybe took more than your share

Do you laugh easily

And let harsh words roll off of your back

While I am still guarded after all these years trying not to be

And take everything people say to heart

Can we meet somewhere in-between our two worlds

What separates two parallels

Have an equal exchange

I’ll give you some of my excess

There must be something I’ve got that you want

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Post: parallel

Rest Area

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 2 Comments

It’s a long haul

The distance from

Young adulthood to

Middle age

I’m leaving my baggage on the side of the road

No need to take it any further

Time to lighten my load

Head out again, open and free

No looking back, just good memories to hold

Inspired by The Daily Word Daily Word Prompt: haul