This year has swallowed, gulped you down whole

The crafting of a body and an etching of a soul through

Pain, prayer, and drink to wash it

Like an after burn with salt on a wound.

As you wake in the morning and sink into regret.

The voices start accusing and requiring payment

In the form of I am sorrys and I never will agains

But as they roll off the tongue the heart sinks

into the knowledge that the promise cannot be kept.

When you were younger, you pushed this all aside

It was everyone else pushin’

and you were the one to run and hide yourself and

Find them,

and pull them,

and lift them,

and help them to stand while,

you were hoping to just feel the sun on your face

And a humble pride.

I understand that humanity in us all,

That you frequently displayed,

Sunken and hidden and didn’t know what you thought

or believed,

or would say,

oh erase all the pain that was laid out broken,

bare, and never repaired, until later.

The necessary voice that tells you to be that help

Caring for others beyond yourself,

is rooted in a childhood

Good and full,

And told yourself that you should recede to the back in service,

But the human heart draws out the loneliness rather than the gift of it,

And you thought you had to apply and beg and cry for a chance.

It’s actually no one’s fault, I know you say.

No one’s fault.

Everyone doing all the things they had to,

and compassion runs deeper than the sadness or dullness.

It’s the feeling that is embedded down beneath in the soul when one

is obliged as a child

and told to comply,

and obey and not speak

Without truly being taught why one’s silence is often a strength.

It’s the sister who needs you to carry her limbs

And the brother who needs advice,

My parents always told me to speak

but the others told us that silence was goodness and goodness

was meekness and meekness

was likable

And full of compliance but I always just wanted to care for

Each of them without

Obligation from the outside that was truncated and short.

But that’s how I married my husband

the same way that we pass down from generations that coping

despite the fact that my

Parents taught me to speak up and learn for myself.

It’s a mark on me

That I yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily,

change and try to relearn.

This idea that our right doings and character is often wrapped up in a

Dull understanding, an opaque realization of the power

Of Christ’s words.

And he always, always loves me, to the ends

Softening all emotions

Eyes to eyes, soul to soul,

Understanding that no one else could

That push me to be

But never needed to be,

For him to love me.

I wish that I was not

All the things that make me so different the way you do as well.

And does he.

And we meet together in a little swing set

Yard in our youth, but now

We built our outdoor dream together

In our garden, with cigars and wine, sun and wind,

And here we stand, full and strong, when it is that

We realize our strength comes without bounds and is

Taught properly and fully and our silence is strength.

I always knew I knew strong people, but

It wasn’t until I became silently strong that I understood,

They build me.