This is not where I expected to be,
but they were right when they said
if you don’t plan where you’re going
you may not like where you end up.
So I am not staying.
The view is crushing.
The map is out, and every step of this journey
is planned. Tour guide at the ready,
ready to keep me going in the right direction.
I know the next destination, and I’m setting off
on a pilgrimage of sacrifice,
to atone for foolish wanderings,
and find the self I lost along the way.
When everything was expanding,
blowing out of proportion,
I found you.
No daily hour of pain.
Discipline brings results,
not agony.
A small discomfort yielding huge reward,
and a glimmer of hope.
.
.
He says she’s not a pebble.
He says she’s more like an interesting rock formation.
Ah, but rock formations were once mountains
as mountains become pebbles
in time.
.
This mountain fills all we can see
I step this way.
You step that way.
Distance grows until we have disappeared from view.
From where we are now, we can each squish
a mountain between our finger and thumb.
I am but one pebble on the beach of your memory,
but oh how I remember the tides of you,
lapping across the surface of me,
making me shine for a moment,
glinting in the sunlight refracted by your ripples,
toppling me in your surf, ’til I clattered like applause
as you went back out to sea.
In a moment
everything she thought she’d be
was sliced away.
In a moment
simple expectations yielded
to new arrays.
In a moment
opportunity seized her hand
to her dismay.
In a moment
foolish disappointments
were child’s play.
In a moment
her entire future was pulled
onto a new pathway.
It is dark here.
We have dug a den,
a hole to hide in.
Safe, secure, one entrance to guard
with snarling, snapping lunges.
Beyond the border we guard,
light illuminates.
We squint at silhouettes,
afraid of what lies behind.
The dark we know,
but light lures.
When he apologized
she thought
This time it will be better
but
“I’m sorry,”
never seems to mean,
“I won’t do it again.”
Fire raging behind and beside
………………………..A cliff before
………………………Nothing to do
……………………………………..but
.
.
………………………………………………leap.
.
.
Life is risky.
If we dare to try,
we may fail.
If we ride out onto new roads,
we may crash,
If we set sail on new waters,
we may drown,
but
If we hide beneath a rock,
we’re in danger of being crushed.
Moving is better,
than standing still.
One moment,
red filled,
changes everything.
.
.
.
(Reading S. E. Hinton’s Outsiders with my class today, and ch. 4 definitely has a red-filled moment that changes everything…).
Shawn L. Bird 