i words

I is not a dirty letter
even if there is no "i" in "team"

influence
inform
improve
increase
impress
intensify
illuminate
influence
immanence
insight
intend
invite
inclination
impel
instigate
infuse
instill
invigorate
introspective
integrity
ingenuity
imagine
Inner Being
inspiration
inclusive
intense
impel
introvert
idea
innovate
inhale
invent

What are your favorite i words?

Spiritual Alchemy

Old pain.  
Memory of hurts.  
Damage visible in unhappy life.
Chip on my shoulder.

Shift in perspective.
No longer am I willing to be unhappy.
My new awareness is almost blindingly obvious.
I lack happiness.
Now I want happiness.

Now it gets difficult.  
Now is the test of willingness.
This is healing:

Painful lancing of a wound that has festered and gotten infected
Clean it out
Treat it with love and kindness
Heal at last. 

The scar is always present
Reminding me of the legacy that shaped me
Yet pain no longer directs me.

I use my experience to help others 
healing their old injuries.  
Pain transformed into love.
Spiritual alchemy.

Dry Future

Acreage spreads gaping before me
shorn of sod and beaten into dust
by the sun's relentless gaze.
Fingers trail in dust,
raising eddies and wavelets in their wake.

This is what I have come to.
Sere vastness, flat and lifeless,
unable to sustain hope
forced underground.

I shield my eyes from the glaring
angry flatness from which there seems
no end.

Where did all the landmarks go?
Like westward-driven forebears facing
limitless prairie, the past nips at my heels,
nudging me to move on, dust and ennui be damned.

I think this is worse than hell and long
for flames to devour me, turning me to the ash
now in my mouth and ears and eyes and soul,
burned up with ambition, burning to succeed.

It's all crap now. Seeds cannot grow in this
unless the miracle of moisture appears.
But I am cold and dry, bereft of tears.
It's been too long a trudge
and I so want to rest, curling up in the
billowing dust now chivvied from sleep by a fine wind.

Would anyone find me under a layer of silky dirt,
particulate matter coating my self?
Could I rise, shake off the earthy flour
and continue?
Or must I instead press on without cease,
and blindly step inch by inch,
toe testing for the chasm
I am convinced lies in wait?

I pray for a clear path
in front of me. Yet when the dust settles, all
I see is the endless dry horizon.
Another prayer, for rain perhaps.

if it were a divorce
you'd want to know how i fared.
wouldn't you lend a sympathetic ear,
murmur reassurance and soothing validation?
comfort for the wounded heart might flow
naturally even if you saw two sides.

so sad to be bereft of all places in your hearts.
i shoulder my heartbreaking burden apart from you
without your even noticing.

to be invisible and invalid
is not my cup of tea.
i move further away
toward those who see me, flowing with tears
to a country i didn't know existed.

i am the only one in my family.

Twinning

What's it like being a twin?
I don't know.
What's it like not being a twin?
It sounds so lonely.
Oh, I always wanted a twin sister.
No you didn't.
You only wanted not to feel so alone.
Feeling alone as a twin is like cheating on your mate,
except it's cheating with your soul
instead of someone else.
Am I entitled to the same existential angst
as singletons,
who enter and leave the
mortal plane alone?
Or do I only gradually earn the right to despair
of finding meaning, a reason
for living, a purpose beyond
completing the matched set?
I stuff the yielded from separating
and individuating into my wallet, and keep suicide
in my back pocket.
Such a rich reward from the developmental lode.
I mined it for years,
lining other pockets with lucre
filthy from wrung hands, and snot-filled with tears.
Plumbing the depths of hopelessness and
I learned the way of the un-twinned
and found it wanting.
Searching for an anchor, I re-found
my solid core.
No longer the dead weight
I tried to shunt aside,
twinship emerged from the shadows
into which it had retreated as solace, comfort, light.

Making my way back

As if through a tunnel,
I viewed the world.
Eyes deep within me were

disconnected from the outside.

Profound distance kept me hidden
and unreachable.

I felt the distance growing,
saw the darkness
lengthening and deepening
my isolation.

When did it end?
I don't recall the process
of closing the gap.
Yet I traveled

the distance
between my self and the world.
Removed the magnet
pulling me too deep inside,
prolonging my agonizing
aloneness.

It was not solitude.
It was torture.
The rack. Stretching my inner bounds
almost beyond repair.

Resilient spirit
rebounded, recovered, rejoiced and
reconnected
with others and outer self.

Bubbling with ebullient life
this path is become
joy indeed.

Paradox

This poem stemmed from a writing workshop exercise where I received a set of unlikely combinations of nouns and adjectives as the basis for a poem. I'll bet you can find those pairs!

Cloudy carnivores of souls,
saintly demons rise from mist
like unpolished butterflies.
Strange yet expected
like the familiar mermaid
who pops her head from the sea,
tail coated with concrete sequins
pulling her below the foam.

Saintly demons as odd
as a plaid kangaroo
warp my perception
like a wrinkled tractor trailer
hinders traffic on my road home.

Saintly demons have transparent
employment to misguide me.
My cranky bamboo heart yelps
as I bend and flex to absorb
paradox.