Day Three
feel
Friends,
How are you doing? We are on day three. Maybe you’re just getting started here, maybe you don’t really plan on joining in on the writing. Maybe you’re not sure whether you’re “enough” of a poet to write.
Let me just interrupt that flow of thinking. Take a few deep breaths.
Remember, words are hope, right?
If words are hope, then everything we put to paper, every word, every poem, every dream, is embodied, is alive, not to just to the page, but to the world.
Believe in that. Believe in your journey, wherever it is right now. Believe that through your words you are finding connection with Mother Earth, with the people around you.
Today’s word is feel.
Don’t you know that to feel is to believe, to acknowledge that you are worth the moment? Don’t you know that to feel is to imagine, to know that your future matters? Don’t you know that to feel is to embrace, to grieve and find your way through it? Don’t you know that to feel is to embody, to release and invite yourself home again?
We try
To let her
Feel
Her frustrations.
We try
Not to
Belittle -
Minimise -
Make light of.
In the same way
We love
For her
To feel
Her joy -
Her delight.
And in
Allowing her
Her feelings,
We are reminded
To allow
Our own.
She is
Our greatest
Teacher,
This human
We have
Grown.
You Know
You don’t slouch; you take shorter steps
You know you are prettier when you smile
You know he’s only saying it because he likes you
You go to the dance because you were invited
You won’t say that you don’t want to, that you aren’t ready
You don’t let anyone know
You don’t tell a soul, after all
You must have done something, said something, looked some kind of way, the way you are *supposed* to look
You are an expert at looking this way
You listen and react the way you were taught
You are praised for this expertise, this gift
Of knowing how to make others comfortable
You don’t question this responsibility until slowly, gradually
A small part of you— the part that knew how to scream when you first drew breath—
Starts to whisper the beginnings of a question that becomes a kind of beckoning
Or maybe a reckoning
That still takes years, decades to decipher
But eventually is loud enough for to hear over the din of rules and manners and responsibilities
So that slowly, gradually,
You begin to learn how to feel.