Failure to Be

I sit in this awareness, trying hard to see a blank canvas;

stressing my heart’s biases to melt away into a quiet place;

squeezing this ever sense of urgency to cool its heels and breathe

through its impulses to make everything better.

It will all be what it will all be… and yet,

I still inhale need and exhale salvation; as if

my only salvation is to be needed.

God loves me

because I am the child who makes him laugh the hardest.

At times, His humored tears touch my spirit, letting me know

I have put on an excellent show, and now it’s time to resign.

But these veins are ambitious; harboring

this blood infused with endless purpose; embodied in

this being of unsettled life.

A state of rest is foreign and intrusive to my design.

What does it mean to not do, say, think, feel…

impose my essence into the universal echo

at all times?

This may be my only existence in this reality.

Therefore, in good conscience, I can never just be.

Challenge for Growth Prompt #3: Learning to Be

A Sleepless Night

Beauty slipped out of her shoes
and had nowhere left to dance
All the course had lost its groove,
as feet bled the cuts of chance
Light had dimmed the room
with the creep of starless skies,
’til only shadows loomed
in the presence of her eyes
Almost turned to never, upon the
death of youthful dreams
Each moment – a new forever
for hollow to be deemed
Bones shouldered worlds where
salty seas stripped her flesh
In the bare, a belly full of
all the mortal emptiness
Body, mind then spirit numbed
with the constant piercing rumble
Sacred heart abiding hushed
beneath the leagues of rubble