This prompt from Real Toads, Just One Word: Burnished, was difficult today, but here is my attempt. It’s good to try something I’m not necessarily used to.
Do not shrink from the friction or the fire,
To live unburnished is to lack a shine.
The fear is true, yet I am no liar,
It is worth the pain to metal refine,
And it’s the same with hearts and minds, listen —
The surfaces and inside will glisten
To change is hard but start — this is your sign.
brings me back to my childhood —
not because I indulged in this flavor back then
(I didn’t even think of it
as indulging,
just eating) —
but because I loved ice cream, innocent
and happy.
And it didn’t matter if ice cream loved me
back —
The situation is much more, much too
complicated now.
I wrote this poem a few weeks ago and am sharing it for the first time with Jade’s prompt for DVerse Poetics about food. There is so much I could write on this topic. By the way, if you’ve never tried peanut butter on top of ice cream, you should try it; it’s my favorite!
For this.
What kind of advice can I impart
Without feeling like I’m playing a part,
Living like a hypocrite?
Which is the message I can give,
Which I can accept myself?
(Can I accept myself?)
My poems are the message:
Make room for your words, a haven,
Make room for yourself, do not give in
Until the negativity is crowded out.
Allow not the silencing of the spirit’s shout.
Update: I am sharing this poem with DVerse Poetics this week, because living with an eating disorder and especially the associated thoughts is absolutely maddening. Thankfully I am much better than 2 or 3 years ago, but it still hasn’t really gone away…
The image above, from The Sunday Muse, inspired this poem.
Greyness permeates, but there’s one stripe where color shines across her face, and people see signs of life.
Maybe they don’t see anything,
But a red smile, to beguile them.
Is a painted face enough to distract them from her pain, to fool them when she lies, that she is fine?
Miss Paint-Face
Misses happiness,
No one notices.
I wrote this poem today and am sharing it with DVerse’s open-link night. Special thanks to Abigail Gronway for directions about how to use the form. I had never heard of the Rhyming Wave before, but it’s a fun one.
Lord Jesus looks with tender love,
With tender, tender, tender love,
You are His fair one and His dove,
You are loved into life.
Today may be with suff’rings rife,
With suff’rings, suff’rings, suff’rings rife,
But He will comfort in the strife,
But He will come anew!
Perhaps you think you’re always blue,
Are always, always, always, blue.
Outside of time, He shares His view,
Outside of fear’s quicksand.
He will hold you in helping hands,
In helping, helping, helping hands,
You need not go to other lands,
You need not run away.
Lord Jesus looks with tender love —
You need not run away.
This is for DVerse Poetics, and it is inspired by a painting by Jackie Hurlbert.
Flowering Mindscape, J. Hurlbert
She is wearing blue,
Her pale face fades
Into the background,
A lighter blue,
She retreats into
Her mind, but even that
Fertile soil seems
Blue — at first.
So she looks up
A little higher.
I won’t whitewash the darkness
That invades my mind:
Sometimes I wonder if life’s
Worth living, if God is kind —
Yet something tells me
The one who seeks will find
What she is looking for:
Life has a bright and warm core.
Shared with Real Toads’ Tuesday Platform.
