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Heidi Franke Dec 2023
There are no limitations. You
Receive help that
You never accepted.
It now encircles you.
By an outstretched hand.
No one bites it off.
Acceptance received.

The sun directly investigates
Any unwillingness
To not accept change. Bringing a pinch of new light.

Who would you have to be
Stepping into the
Other side?
Finding you are truly good enough.
That any other connection
From limiting beliefs
Unravels, like opening a pomegranate. One seed thinks it's all alone,
not seeing all the others encased in their own restrictions.
What if it were the perfect time? The full ripe fruit.

You are the right age! This is the perfect time!

What if the opposite were true?
What would you do? Even if a part of you did not believe it?

Bathe hence your confining insistences.
What is in your skyline? Your oceans horizon?
Supplied with new resources, a deliberate inventory, of unrestricted beliefs, if the opposite were true?
Then who would you have to be
To make it unmistakable?
Who would I want to be
If the opposite were true? Now, only now, as a matter of time.
Reflections on a learned patterned of thinking, leading to a false self identity.
Heidi Franke Dec 2023
Riding the air
In dark morning
A steady current of rain
Descends
Upon everything
The fir tree
The house roof
My dogs fur
The empty Ash tree
The fallen leaves
Brown, red, yellow, orange
The bird feeder catches the water As does the bird bath
The puddles
The street
The cement
My head

My ears hear each
Multitude of patterned drops
In apparent chaos
Reminds me of the brain
The synapses in my brain
Circuitry, each drop a connection from
Dendrite to dentride
Messages of the unknown
Of falling to earth
Of vulnerable life
Unprotected.

The unhoused, in the cool soaked air of December. Will you remain blessed?
Will you spread your joy in the patter of rain to those who bare the rain in their skin, on their dampened clothes? Adding a chill.
Will today you find some without a home
Bringing tarps, blankets, source of heat, to those who listen
To the same rain
While they shiver
And you stay in your glow with your tidy wood burning fireplace. Stay comfortable? Risk giving for giving sake. What floods of love can you share in December rather than giving to
Your precious family, the left overs, the excesses
And give to charity that make each day another day for breath in rain from the heavens. I choose the rain. I could be the one in
The open now, soaking as I pen these words.

Hoping words of love, neutrality, non-judgement and altruism be the "church" we reside in. Drop by drop.
Over a hundred different sounds of rain brought to earth by gravity, in my receiving ears, and the tiny sparkles of light reflected upon the  light from the street lamp shining upon concrete saturated by this extended morning rain.
Sunday. Sitting under my porch with coffee in hand, dog at my side. Dry from this music of rain. Thinking of the homeless. Now mustering the strength and courage to buy Starbucks growlers full of coffee for about thirty and driving around town once again finding cold people shivering. Time to order that coffee and give warm to some as best I can in my limited way. Looking for costs of pull over rain coats. My gifts to my children this year is to give what I would give them to others less fortunate. Be neutral in your thinking. Be rid of judgements of self and others. More love, less hate.
Heidi Franke Nov 2023
It started when people stopped bathing
Or showering.

Every day before they went to work or after their 5 mile run.  People just stopped stepping into their tubs
Or showers
To turn the faucet handles that activated
Cold and hot water to fall from the plumbing.

They gradually
Lost interest in hygiene. Personal cleanliness was ghosted.

Everything else mattered to them,  until it didn't.  Getting their kids to school on time mattered, finishing the work project by deadline mattered, visiting relatives in Montana mattered, driving to the store for groceries mattered, until it didn't. Simply ceasing soap and water on flesh.

They just stopped bathing. It's not that they were afraid of water. If near the ocean they would still run and swim in the waves,
Or jump into the pool at the Hilton. No they weren't afraid of water.
It was something else
So slow
And insidious that it was hardly noticed at first.

The domesticated animals picked up on the phenomena first.
They became anxious. They scurried, tried vocalizing. They sensed a lack of intention from their care givers. They sensed a lack of worthiness inside of their humans. The animals began to wonder about their own well being.
What was their future?

Once you start with a variation from normal,  from routine,  from tradition,  the pendulum swings.
The people didn't realize what was happening. Then it slowly dawned on them over time.
They didn't feel needed.
But kept it a secret. The secret necrosed from the inside
Out. They forgot that connecting to one another
Was vital to survival. Their silence could be deadly.
An idea came to mind how in depression one stops caring about certain things. What if everyone did?
Heidi Franke Nov 2023
The forecast on the radio
I didn't need.
I felt it coming
In and through the threads of my light sweater
Tickling my skin so my arms embraced
One another.

The barometer falling
As are the remaining Ash leaves
Of yellow, like canaries rushing about
Certainly saying goodbye
To the past
As they must
When the wind picks up.

Hurling chilly
whips of wind
down
The East canyon
Announcing its arrival
I think of my warmest coat
And how long I'll have to wear it
As I sit on the porch in my shivering
Bare feet listening for what is to come
The seasons change
How will I?
Contemplating arrival of winter storm, the loss of one season to another. Will I make changes?
Heidi Franke Oct 2023
To heal,
Journal they say
Like a worm in the dirt
Of my front lawn
Sliding, pushing through
Air pockets
Arduous, unending crawl
No words come
To mind
Where can I breathe

To heal,
Journal they say
Words don't come easy
They fly up like
Torn pages of a book
Riffed, stolen letters of some name
In the nameless wind
Grasping what isn't there,
A cynical continuing void

To heal,
Journal they say
My hands become deaf and blind
The pages curl and mold
Pen and paper inventing before I have begun
All I have is the deep
The deepest inside
That comes here
Traversing incredulity, while I
cry

To heal, they say
Heidi Franke Oct 2023
Not drowning today

In remorse from yesterday

Draining self-hatred
Heidi Franke Oct 2023
Silent stars reside
In the blue milieu
Continuing their stellar constancy by day.
They are there like my love,
silent, unpretentious, patient and kind. Trace your finger along the sky, like a constellation connecting the dots of your name to a safe, congenial and forgiving place to call home.

Maybe your name will meet with mine in the night when the stars return, walking across the expanse of loving kindness that is within your reach. See you tonight dearest one. Just look up.
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