Pain doesn’t advance in degrees.
It’s a sudden deluge
overtaking you,
filling up your lungs
with every kind of darkness
and bile.
A hand rises from below,
feeble with exhaustion,
trying to find the strength
to battle;
drowning in what is,
seeking to swim
in what will be.
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Copyright © SirenSong1208
All rights reserved
Photograph taken by SirenSong1208
I sat upon the sand
watching as he played amid the waves,
catching each swell as I’d taught him.
With every rise and fall,
and every smile and laugh,
I could see the past years
and the pain and stress he endured
melt away
and for those few carefree moments
he was a kid again,
one who had no worries in front of him
except for whether he might swallow too much
of the sea…
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Copyright ©SirenSong1208
All rights reserved.
Photograph taken by SirenSong1208
Quite often when I write it is what I am feeling intensely at the moment and the words spill like blood from a fresh, deep cut.
When I revisit those same words, a day, a month, a year later, the emotions can still feel like a wound that has not been cauterised and I am transported back to the moment my thoughts were bared.
The feelings are not the same, but I am unable to cast an indifferent eye upon them. I find myself gazing at them from a safe distance, peering over the rim of that abyss, no desire to wade in, hip deep, to the pain.
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Copyright ©SirenSong1208
All rights reserved
Pain doesn’t advance in degrees
It’s a sudden deluge that overtakes you
filling up your lungs
with every kind of darkness
and bile
My hand rises from below
feeble with exhaustion
as I try to find the strength to battle
drowning in what is
seeking to swim
in what will be
:
**I initially posted this on Instagram but within a few moments it was deleted due to “Violation of community guidelines”. I’m not sure how they were violated as there is no revealing nudity nor anything explicit. Simply an artsy photograph I chose to use to articulate my writing.
Copyright © SirenSong1208
All rights reserved
Photograph taken by SirenSong1208
Letting go isn’t giving up. It isn’t failing. It’s making an investment in your future. But we get stuck, do we ever. We cling to that which isn’t making us better, or whole. We do this because we still love the other person, or we’re scared, or nostalgic, or stubborn, or many other reasons. The why isn’t important, it’s what you do after you understand the why that matters.
It takes enormous effort to make that decision, to take those first steps and embark upon that path. But once you get over the pain of ripping off the band aids you have painstakingly applied for years, it becomes freeing. And that is a surprise itself.
Amid the pain and sadness, and yes, grieving, there is a lightness. Perhaps it is confidence that the right decision has been made, or maybe it’s because we are no longer in limbo. Going through each day, seeing a very different future on the horizon, but taking no steps toward it weighed us down. Our progress was inhibited. There was no forward momentum. When you are stuck like that, feelings fester and feel tight beneath the skin.
Letting go is hard and often it is a decision you know must be made, but reconciling heart and head can take time. We step around the minefields, we navigate our pain, until we know we are strong enough to tackle it head on. And when that happens, we loosen the tether that has held us in place, that has kept us from living our lives fully. There is a freedom in realizing and believing that within every ending is a new beginning.
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Copyright © SirenSong1208
All rights reserved
Photograph by Manon Rousseau (edited)
When something is at an end, deep inside you know.
The end credits may not yet be rolling,
but FIN is upon the screen in your mind regardless.
What can you do but immerse yourself in grace,
swallow disappointment and pain,
whether vague
because of the length of time it took to slowly and coldly unravel,
or as an immense lump in your throat
that you cannot get down because it is already clogged with hot, wet tears.
Grace means finding the best of what was
so that anger, hurt, fear
does not close the doors of your heart permanently.
It means being true to yourself
and using that as a guide to how you respond,
regardless of how you were treated.
You may never have answers as to the why of it
and there may never be any vindication for what has come before,
but grace means letting go and making your peace with that,
and knowing you are better for it.
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©SirenSong1208 ~ 2017
Photography by SirenSong1208
Fields of red poppies
Litter the landscape of my soul
Composed bleeding
Never a mess to be found
Yet the color gives voice to pain
To the wrenching hurt
Of being meticulously cut
A thousand silent times
Never noticed
My face ashen
As pretty poetry takes
My life blood
#AprilFalls
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©SirenSong1208
Artwork by Moey
