I never felt pain when I was making my scars
It was soothing - like brushing my teeth or combing my hair
Perhaps it was relief, calming chemicals
Churning in my brain and body
Perhaps it was my life’s work, my purpose
And the only way I knew how to survive
It was mine, nobody could take it away from me
Sometimes I miss that feeling
Miss the ritual and doing something soothing
But I have paid a heavy price -
There is no going back on how I look
But I accept my face, my body, the extent of it all
It almost killed me but in many ways it also kept me alive
It surprises me that after forty years I stopped
There have been different self destructions -
None that measured up
But I think I heard my body saying enough is enough
And so I run my fingers gently over my patchwork skin
Feel the ridges and look at the damage
And I say to myself - I survived.

The Earth sings its own beautiful song
Rain drops like lullabies
Lightening like arpeggios
Breaking the silence of the blue skies
The clouds resume their order
Puffy and sweet - like marshmallows
Or a bumbling andante
Slow and steady
I treasure the brightness and hope of day
And the soothing, wrapped blanket of night
I invite the silence into my thoughts
- Into my bed
At dawn will come the chorus of birds
A day after the church bells rang
Here they come, flying on the wing
Punctuating the blue expanse
With delicate quavers, fast and gentle and soaring
How wonderful that the Earth still sings
All conquering over a world that attempts to muffle it
But inner joy tucked in its particles and atoms always sings on.

Sometimes it feels like my problems are stacked
One inside the other
Small into bigger
Bigger into bigger still
Echoes of time lost and found again
Small to start, like the petals on a carnation
Unfurling those petals to make a flower
Rich and heavy as ripe apples in an orchard
Longing to be plucked and eaten
Something sweet to quell the hunger inside
To pass like velvet on my tongue
To smooth and caress.

At times I collapse, drift off into my dreams
When the pressures of life
Have pushed me passed my threshold
I sit quietly and let off steam
A train at a railway station waiting for more coal
I clasp my hands, breathe deeply
And in the hush whisper to myself
These problems will come and go
Summer sun to winter frost
The world will keep on turning
And when all the problems seem ready to jettison
I will pack them away and be left with a beautiful red doll
To place upon my sun filled window sill.