When you think you are holding onto
the last shred of yourself,
don’t spend it on the
words that have been long lost in the air,
on the gazes that the eyes have long forgot.
Keep it safe for yourself.
You have lost bigger things than love
and you have still lived well.
And a broken heart is something
that everyone needs in life.

I thought
my thoughts
were bigger than anyone's.
Maybe I was bigger than anyone.

This served to isolate me
from the fact that I am small, not bigger and I am okay
with that.

When did it begin? Why would I need this mechanism of living?
Did it start at birth? Or when my cat died in our house fire?
Maybe...
When I lost my father to his mental illness? When he was taken away?
Maybe the ****?
When the trauma set in?

If I am a mass of cells, a living organism,
vulnerable to this world of others.
I need protection. There was none when little. Children need protection.

I developed my bigger-self by watching others. I learned to protect.

I learned to heal. I learned to forgive, but always, my thoughts
were bigger than yours. You didn't recognize so I appeared
aloof, angry, bitter, warming, smarter, friendly, volatile, politically correct, patient, intense, stubborn, caring, wistful, shattered and put together again. I was all over the map. I couldn't find my waypoint, until now.

This is life's way. Our vehicle is our thoughts.

I am not bigger in thought, in action or in self. I am tired of running away, of blaming, of being ashamed.

I no longer need protection other than from myself.

I am now relaxing in the part I could not have been taught. The idea that even experiences, over and over and over again, would teach me my lesson. You ask why people keep repeating
mistakes. This is our allotment. The price each of us pays.

It is my thoughts that save me now, wondering about my son, his illness, about my predicament
after years of hard work, unabashedly independent, procuring mindfulness, deliberating the Buddhist way, meditating on thoughts,
through a maze of my twelve steps
that I now for this moment am alone in.  My thoughts deconstructed. More connected, but not bigger.

My shoulders drop, my face unfurrows, my heart slows, a tear begins if I let it. I am released. I will not suffer further.

How can I tell you, I am not bigger any longer and I am at peace.

A collection of walls
are only as small as
                         we think..

For everything's  bigger within,
                              size is in the mind..

A ****** is, a ****** was, a ****** here? a dime a dozen.
A ****** girl? just sixteen.
Choose to see life, a different sheen.
Needle never, needle then.
Needle why, in need of a friend.
Need some love, to warm my bones.
was frightened then, terribly alone.
A ****** was, a ****** why.
A ****** wished she could die.
A ****** lost it, skinny and sick.
all that's left, bones to pick.
A ****** disease, a ****** cure.
Don't know if you can recover for sure.
A good person now, a ****** then.
Hard to tell who might win.