#personaldevelopment
Tears falling from the eyes
Heavy sigh that comes from the mouth
Eyebrows trying to meet each other
Nose shining through the redness
I remind myself,
It's a beautiful phase
Aug 3, 2021
Aug 3, 2021 at 5:11 AM UTC
Defeat your future self.
Respond rather than react.
Take it one step at a time.
Aim for zero pending,
or just be present, show up,
especially for yourself!
You will make it happen.
Jul 1, 2021
Jul 1, 2021 at 7:44 AM UTC
the unfamiliar caterpillar
woke to the day
but it was all new
nothing the same way.
why would he stay?
when his body was sore
he woke up on new years
and his fears no longer bore
with his shed of a past life
everything is strife.
but with wings,
every little thing
gleams and feels
right.
right.
right then left then right again.
there you are, my friend.
Happy new year.
-Jac + mac
Jan 25, 2019
Jan 25, 2019 at 4:55 PM UTC
The last time they fought
he told her that her ego ran her life
maybe he was right.
Was her mind too much
and that is why she hides
it away in a cage so no one else can
but still she craves the light so
she spends her time looking good in every one
forgetting to nourish her mind.
That is not the girl I know
faux passions
dragging out interactions for the sake of a boost
who knew she could turn out like this?
That is not the girl I know,
it is the girl he said she was,
and that is not the girl I loved.
I want her back, please.
Jul 31, 2016
Jul 31, 2016 at 8:56 PM UTC
1. THE WITHERING
the tree stood—
arms outstretched,
leaves loud in the wind,
but hollow at the belly,
a cathedral of unanswered prayer.
i searched it once,
twice,
a third time with hungered eyes.
nothing.
not a fig.
not a promise.
not even a hint.
and i,
taught to measure grace
by the pound,
felt the curse rise
like a coal in my throat.
should i not speak fire?
should i not say
what the book said?
but the tree—
it only shivered
in the hush
before the rain,
its roots gnawing
at the dark’s arithmetic.
2. RESOLUTION
so
the fig
is plucked.
the fig
is eaten.
i won’t
outchrist
christ,
who cursed
a fig tree
for its figlessness.
i will wait—
not like a saint,
but like the soil:
gritted,
greedy,
working its slow alchemy.
i will dig
beneath the bark’s scripture,
unclench the earth’s fist.
the fire in my mouth
will cool to embers,
banked for colder nights.
3. BEYOND THE CURSE
so—
the fig is ripe
and taken,
the fig is eaten.
but i
will not
curse the quiet branch,
nor chide the soil
for its stutter.
i will not
outcurse
the clock,
its metallic tongue
counting barren hours.
i will prune the brittle twigs,
hands soft as rain
but deliberate as dawn.
i will listen
to the sap’s gossip,
the root’s rebuttal
to my inherited fire.
4. IN THE TIME OF FIGS
in the time of figs,
some trees will bow
under the weight of bees.
others ache
in the drought’s lecture—
roots parsing
the grammar of survival.
the fig is ripe—
it is taken,
it is eaten.
but i
will not
curse the quiet branch,
nor scorn the stem
for its slowness.
i will wait—
through leaf-fall,
through the dry bark’s psalms,
through the long hush
of unbecoming.
i will wait
for the swelling,
for the fig
that comes
when it is time,
or does not.
5. FIRST FRUIT
and then—
as if remembering
how to give,
the tree offered
a single fig.
no trumpet,
no thunder,
no decree etched in gold.
just one fruit,
warm with stolen light,
nestled in green.
i did not pluck it.
i placed my hand beneath,
and it dropped
like a comma
into my palm—
a pause, not a period.
and i wept—
salt pooling where the curse
once burned my throat—
for the soil’s stubborn breath,
for the tree’s mute argument
against my inherited fire.
6. SECOND WITHERING
and when the next fig fell—
not to my palm,
but to the ants’ feast—
i bit my tongue
to keep the old curse
from crawling back.
(even grace
has its winters.)
i knelt,
pressed my ear
to the split bark,
and heard the roots
laughing underground—
a sound like figs fermenting,
like futures
not yet named.
7. EFFLORESCENCE
now, i measure time
in blushed skins,
in the slow sugar
of patience.
i have learned
to read the tree
backwards:
fruit first,
then flower,
then the ghost
of a bud
teaching me
to unlearn
the arithmetic
of scarcity.
the curse is still there—
but it hums
like a hive now,
its venom spun
to honey.
© Lanre Adebayo
May 10
May 10, 2026 at 10:07 PM UTC