this is it.

day 31: a poem a day in the month of may

Friends,

We made it. What a long, beautiful, tender, exhausting, glorious month it’s been.

Thank you for joining me here, whether you wrote poetry, read it, held it, asked what it means, however you engaged in this space, thank you.

I’ve been reflecting a lot this morning on what it means to be a writer, why I do it. I’ve always needed words, they’ve always been a companion to me when it felt like I didn’t even have human companions.

Words and stories are guides, living breathing friends who accompany us on this journey. I hope you feel that.

We end this month with the word rejuvenation, which I think is a beautiful word to send us off into June.

Rejuvenation is about giving new life or energy to something, to restore something (or someone) to the characteristics of a younger landscape

Poetry rejuvenates us, brings us to life, reminds us of our humanity. I can’t wait to read your poems!

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Rejuvinate

I was rejuvenated that day

in my therapist’s office,

the day we spoke of my

younger self and in my mind

I gave her a hug. There, that

day I came back to life, back to

a life I’d never known before,

back home to myself. I began

to heal, realizing that the ways

in which I’ve always cared for myself,

the ways she’s always cared for me,

actually got me here, got me to this

moment and this appreciation,

got me through all the hell and all the shit.

That day I turned back to myself, to her,

and said I was sorry, and said I loved her,

and said I loved me, and found new life

in the reunion, in the exchange of

pain and fracture for rejuvenation, for a

chance at a different kind of living, at a

chance for a different kind of thriving.

I am rejuvenated when I remember

what it means to be young, what it means

to love and care, to practice curiosity and

never be ashamed to say what hurts.

A better world is a world where we all 

find them, our young selves, and thank them

for caring for us, for carrying wisdom in their

bodies and in their souls, and for bringing us

back home when we didn’t even know how much

we had been longing for it in the first place.