I keep coming back to the same question. What do I do with all this pain?
It’s ******* everywhere! It fills my house, and it’s spilling out of every opening, and it’s lying all over the ground everywhere I go.
Since over the years, I’ve been asking the forests to hold it for me, and I’ve sunk it in lakes and I’ve tucked it under the rocks. I’ve spread it out along the city streets, until the shadows and doorways were all full to bursting.
I’ve put it in all sorts of containers and oddities until the pockets of my soul and heart are all bulging and torn.
I’ve put it in drawings, and creativity, and I’ve used it as ink for so many poems and narratives.
I’ve recycled it into love, and compassion and understanding.
But still there’s more and finally, I’m out of room. And now it’s everywhere! It’s just ******* everywhere!
I have a thought
Maybe instead of hiding it or trying to lose it, I gather it all back up. I compress it and mold it.
Walls separate so that won’t work, and it’s the wrong material for stepping stones or stairs. It’s too itchy for a blanket and too unflattering for a cosmetic.
But I think that pain could make a fine shield, etched with the sorrows that came before, and painted with tears. Used to deflect more of the same, but to leave my strong hand free, so I can still welcome the future.
But what a job that is going to be,
I better get started.

JHenry