This month I found a fierce group of women who spur on one another, who support one another, who express themselves creatively. This post comes out of a prompt they offered. Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more: http://www.thestorysessions.com/subscribe/

Unfold

tissue paper

butterfly wings

poppy petals

pie crust rolled thin

Bible pages

confidence

risk

vulnerability

heart

desolation

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I’m tempted to retreat from the day, close in on myself,

crawl back in bed,

detach my brain from my heart,

put a screen in front of my face to dull my mind.

Bad news on top of our new norm pushes me back

away from the resignation, the adaptation I thought I had achieved.

I would rather —

but we don’t get to ‘rather’ and we don’t get to escape, not really.

It comes back to us,

in waves,

in song,

in tear-filled eyes at the grocery store for no. apparent. reason.

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Even though it is scary and unwieldy,

I try to spread my arms wide,

unfold from my place crouched in fear and self-protection,

where I duck from embarrassment and weakness.

I stand up, stiff and tingling, vertigo around my edges, heart pounding in my ears.

This is real.

This is life.

Life contains in it death.

That I have avoided much of this type of pain is a miracle unto itself.

That I have good men in my life who modeled to me love, commitment and joy, this is a gift.

So I unfold and stand straight to absorb the full weight that could descend with their loss,

until I have to bend beneath the heaviness of the burden, though I willingly bear it

because

it is the weight of love.