Crumpled Petals in my Pocket

April 23

CRUMPLED PETALS IN MY POCKET

I can’t bring back the bloom.  Cohesion, lost in ripeness, is left only to memory.  I carry home the parts, folded, petite, fragrant bedding for my wistful desires.  I put these colored remnants into a jar of salt.  I make an aromatic rub for the sweetest of wounds.  Transforming the parts to useful duty doesn’t restore the flower.  It doesn’t pay tribute to the past; it is survival.  I have a mind filled with roses but I must make hay.  Today, I live.  Today, the rose is dead, its pieces in my pocket.  I don’t die with the blossom, though my head blows in the wind.  The rose runs its course. I run mine.

Line your clouds with anything you like.

*

Coming Home to Work

I have arrived home to a beehive;

everyone industrious,

everyone filled with purpose,

everything buzzing right along.

My response to this of course is anger.

I have a sting and I want to use it.

I have a place it falls into yet I fear falling.

The living world is now opened to me,

but my destination had been death for so long

that the prospect of diligence ignites steel blue fury.

I divide my time between gratitude and rage.

I want to accuse myself, rescue myself,

then I remember everyone in this place too

has a buzz, a stripe and a stinger.

You are reading selections from Sober on the Way to Sane and More Lines From My Life by Sherrie Theriault

http://www.amazon.com/Sober-On-The-Way-Sane/dp/1440417342/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576888&sr=8-1&keywords=sober+on+the+way+to+sane

http://www.amazon.com/More-Lines-From-My-Life/dp/1448677203/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1388576956&sr=8-1&keywords=More+Lines+From+My+Life

Coming Home to Work

April 25

Coming Home to Work

I have arrived home to a beehive; everyone industrious, everyone filled with purpose, everything buzzing right along.  My response to this of course is anger.  I have a sting and I want to use it.  I have a place it falls into yet I fear falling.  The living world is now opened to me, but my destination had been death for so long that the prospect of diligence ignites steel blue fury.  I divide my time between gratitude and rage.  I want to accuse myself, rescue myself, then I remember everyone in this place has a buzz, a stripe and a stinger.

Hum in a foreign language

*

DESSERT

I have to be my own appetizer

I have to be the thing which entices and intrigues me

I must be the roughage, the salad full of color and variety

The entrée must be me, as well.

The things which sustain me

The meat of my life

I have to supply and swallow it down

I can be all this.

I run to the sweetness of others

But this cannot be my source of sustenance

The greater part of me

Needs to derive from me.

I can set the table

And fill it with the fullness of who I am

I am enough and others are dessert

Twinkies will never be sufficient, they can only be a treat.