12:12
To write a new story
you might think you have to finish
the old one
though that might just be
precisely what’s keeping you
stuck
the telling of the new story
could be one way
to make sense
of the un-sensical
those complex thoughts and feelings
Wrapped like wire around your bones
Each time you go to speak to them
They tighten, and snap your body back into the shape you were when you were hurt
Call it a stirring
One moment, there is stillness
The next,
A sand storm that only you seem to notice
Whips through the room in which you sit
And people around you
go about their tasks without second thought
While you succumb to the deafening sound
Of Howling
To write a new story,
From where you are, you might think that is some cruel joke
Like asking somebody with a broken leg
To walk across the room
Maybe you are not ready
Maybe you are, but you’re afraid
Isn’t it funny
How we can cling to stories
Even when they hurt us?
We might wish to protect them
Even as they torment us
Surely they do not truly mean us harm
After all, they are our stories
And why would I choose to tell a story
In which my heart remains broken,
In which I am left alone, floating through space?
Why would I, indeed
You might think you are writing the new story
By trying to explain the old
But that too, is illusory
We know we are telling the new story
When our spines straighten
And we are no longer trying to explain ourselves to anybody
We start to move in a different way,
Something akin to the smell of rain
The new story begins
With a new experience
The old is laid to rest
And with that,
We weep
We weep in such a way that there is space made within us Where before, there was tension
Now there is
The gentle hum of peace
Is this work ever done?
Have I failed if today there is peace,
But later, anger, even rage?
No. There is no failure in learning.
There is only learning, as long as it takes.
The new story lives within you
Patiently leaving clues
Hoping you will pick up the pen
And take the risk
in opening
