How do I learn to truly forgive myself?
How do I stop blaming myself
for the mistakes I have made?
How do I find peace within
myself to move forward,
instead of always looking backwards?  
How do I turn this around,
before I totally lose myself again?

These questions haunt me
each and every day.
Just when I think I am making
even the smallest of steps forward,
there is something, or someone,
who pulls me back –
back down into the abyss
of pure sorrow and shame.  
Sorrow of love gone wrong, or lost;
shame for allowing it to
consume such a beautiful heart, and mind.

I know that I must learn to forgive myself
for all of my errors of judgment,
which is one of the hardest things
I have ever had to face.
Being one’s own worst enemy,
while facing the deepest of all criticisms,
is very hard to overcome,
especially, when you lose sight of
the light at the end of the tunnel.  
My faith deserts me when
I need it the most.  
I am solely living on the outside,
while slowly dying in the inside.  

I see, nor feel, any real purpose.  
Am I always meant to loom
in another’s shadow?  
Never to reap the benefits
of all that I have invested?
Never to be acknowledged
for having a good heart?
Never feeling like I will
ever be truly loved,
or cherished, for the
person that I am?  
What does it truly take
for someone to see
the worth in me?  

All these questions,
while not having the answers
makes it hard to believe
that you matter that much
to all those around you.  
Am I just going to always be
an afterthought,
instead of, a forethought?

What more can I do to
prove my own worthiness?
Will I perpetually be stuck
in uncertainties of my own
self-doubt?  
Will I ever truly find my
place in this world?

All these questions constantly
swirl in my mind, as I try
to figure out the answers.
The pressure of finding
these answers lies
heavily on my shoulders.
I am a strong woman, indeed,
but when I face one
challenge after another,
without truly healing,
I tend to find myself
questioning my own existence.

I do not want to be remembered
as a woman who was always in pain.
I want my self-description to be of
a woman, who despite her
many adversities,  found her
sense of being, as an example to others.
Life is exactly what we make of it.
If I continue to allow myself to
wallow in these fears,
then I have truly succumbed to
own my demise.

Even with the most clouded
of mind, I know I can not
allow this anymore.  
I know that my heart
cannot endure the pain
and disappointment that it bears.  
So, I must learn to recognize
that I am human, and that
I will make mistakes.  
How I learn from these mistakes
is what separates me from another -
it is what defines my uniqueness.  
Regardless of the loneliness
that surrounds me constantly,
I must remember that I am
needed, and wanted, by others.

The only way to do this
is to try to forgive myself,
while realizing,
that those who also recognize
my true beauty are the ones
that deserve to be part of my life.  
As the haze lifts more and more each day,
I do believe I will find my way again.
Just some more bumps along this
road that they call life.  

Vicki A. Zinn
May 27, 2013

Sometimes I think
If I had planted
Roses instead of
dandelions
part of me
wouldn’t constantly be blown away
with even the slightest
of breezes.
Or maybe every time
I wished
for you to love me back
I wouldn’t keep
losing myself.
I should’ve known
that no flower
especially one as beautiful
as you
would ever love me
because
she is a June Peach
and I am nothing
but a
mere dandelion,
and with every chance I get
I’ll wish for you,
then you'll disappear.
While she blooms more stunning
each and every year.

*a.n.p

I still talk to you even though you do not answer
it just makes me feel better
Days like today when I wished you a Happy Mothers Day
I sent it up through the air in hope that it reaches you
I also write to you in my poems in hopes that you read them
Time has made it easier on my heartache and not to feel
But this hole in my heart will never heal
The love I feel for you will never be gone
and the memories I have of you will always live on

Nothing is permanent.

Trees lose their vitality; their green leaves turn orange, crumpling into hard brittleness. Eventually they lose their grip and fall from what they've always clung to for life. They hit the ground, vigor and greenery gone from their veins. Soon a little girl who loves the sound of cackling autumn leaves beneath her feet will trample them into nonexistence, turning them into little more than indiscernible pieces that comprise the mosaic of a forest floor.

People are the same. Youth makes fools out of all of us, but with that folly comes the beauty of innocence and naivety. Youth makes the world around us blur, sharpening only the lines of the loveliness we see in the midst of ugliness. But in youth we don't notice those displeasing to the eye.  Vitality, vigor thrums in your veins the moment you realize you've climbed so high up the tree you can see above the gates that surround the only world you knew. It doesn't come to your attention that you might fall, that your fragile little bones might break into so many pieces you forget childish joy. But you don't think about this, because you can see beyond your boundaries. You can see the sunset as its reddish glow sinks seemingly into the earth, bathing your whole world for an instant, in glorious light. You want to climb higher, to see more, to feel taller than everyone else. It doesn't occur to you that this increases danger, that it will be all the more painful for you. Because in this moment you don't know pain. You don't know danger. You don't know fear.

But that's what parents are for. Because they've seen it all, done it all, and they know pain, they know danger, they know fear, and they know that the sun doesn't actually set. They've witnessed the beauty of dawn and dusk you gaze at with so much wonder so many times that they began to see it only as part of time.

They know that some day you will change. You will grow up, and that your eyes will lose their innocence. You will know pain, the kind that doesn't only refer to the little cuts and bruises you get from stumbling and falling. The kind that feels like a black hole has suddenly sprung to life inside you, eating your heart from the inside. You will know danger, the kind that doesn't only mean risk of getting bruised. The kind where you know the full implications of what you are doing, that there is a possibility that you might lose a part of you or the whole of you. You will know fear, the kind that turns your blood into ice, that freezes your heart into eternal immobility; the kind that makes you break into a sweat, that makes every instinct of yours scream for you to run, run as fast as you can.

As you change, as you grow up, you will realize that not everything people say should be taken literally.

And like the trees there will come a time when you will lose your vitality, when you shrivel up and crumple into hard brittleness, full of bitterness and wistfulness. One day you will look at the sunset and tell yourself, "I wish I could be a kid again." Eventually you will lose your grip and fall from what you've always clung to for life. You will fall, vigor and suppleness gone from your veins. Soon your children, their children, their grandchildren, will stand over a coffin-sized hole as they lay you down for your final rest. Soon the earth you've walked on for such a long, long time, will trample you into nonexistence. Decades later, you will be nothing more than indiscernible pieces that comprise the richness of the earth.

Nothing is permanent, but we are all here to create something that is.