The Tenderness & Might of Armor,

 

Linking with the Sunday Muse for Muse # 141

Happy New Year Everyone!

“The past is not a package one can lay away.”  ~ Emily Dickinson

 

I once wore my disappointments of the past like heavy armor prepared to battle all that the future could hold or take away.

Keeping every harsh word and silent goodbye like folded letters in envelopes I could never send.

I grew wide fields of wheat feeding an obese denial that no tractor’s blade could ever plow,

and my heart built colossal walls so magnificent that no man could ever climb nor could my own eyes see beyond.

You see memory is a relentless child that has heard news of the carnival and will never forget when it does not come to town,

and those disappointments seem to grow bigger with time like a child’s hopes or a woman’s hips,

but even harder to ever lose!

So in the lessons that life’s hurts and losses seem to bring,

I learned to carry grief tightly like an over protective mother afraid of running children and the oncoming cars.

Looking back now, I see I had spent all my strength fiercely holding a certain sorrow;

afraid of losing all I hold dear.

Holding the cold hard knowledge of what it is to truly lose.

For life becomes a bitter struggle when the fear of what we could lose outweighs

the abundant joy of holding what we truly have.