Your life sounds intense, so many fires to put out,
fences to mend, people to please and I wonder,
if you might need and deserve some rest.
Do you, can you, set limits with family, friends, co-workers?
Not sure it’s okay to decline just one more thing to do,
since you could be seen as selfish, even wrong to say no.
Rest assured, your unfair, undeserved shame is safe with me,
in this time and place, space is held for you, your pain, your truth,
why,
maybe it’s time to reword the story you made up about a debt
you never owed, the servitude, the obligation to "get 'er done"
are you a hard-wired, mass-produced human being, and you ask
why,
maybe it's time to acknowledge your existence was/is free of
charge, realize there’s no fixed set of dos and don’ts to be
successfully completed day in and day out until you die,
why,
maybe it’s way past time to finally oust the ancestral imprint
of shame you don’t deserve, a creation of foolish self-pride to
always do the next right thing, to amend old tribal wrongs,
even when you’re tapped way beyond empty.
Can you honor yourself, your life, finally, once and for all, can you
come clean, be real, do what only you can do, and set yourself free
from your own judgement, speak truth from your heart, then,
and only then, will you set everyone else free as well.
~ pe kaplan