Poetry|Prompt

Acceptance

A Poem

When I was two, I was wide open and everything was mine; everything slid comfortably into my world, into my hands, into the molten aspect of A universe still being formed.

When I was ten, I was buffeted by the winds of change, by death, by a world inconsistent with the one I knew before; I was dreamy, but the world wasn’t; I was gentle, but the world pushed and bruised me until I cried.

When I was thirteen, I was bereft. A father lost. a boat unmoored, a world shorter and narrower and less colorful than before. And my dreams, they were escape hatches- out into the sea, where I might swim away to a distant shore.

When I was nineteen, my heart came undone. my lips, fused from lack of use, my mind a whirligig on the roof of a barn, miles from home; spinning out of control, as I pondered, where am I going and God — where are the keys?

When I was twenty-six, I found love; no, it crashed into me like an asteroid, cratering the earth - I was dust and heartache no more - lifted upon the wind, sail set; I was two again and the universe bubbled with heat.

When I was sixty, I fell broken by the side of the road; a red flare went up — damaged cargo -please detour. I knew nothing; dreamt of nothing. The hole inside of me, sucking in anything and everyone, until I was filled with everything I didn’t want.

When I was one day older, I drifted above myself And saw the universe as it saw me — and I felt Acceptance. I felt the crush of love and hate and madness and genius, splitting the atom and handing it to a lover as a gift — never to be used.

I felt remorse, tearing through me, like a rapier through a silk sheet and it pounded me; waves against a defeated shore and then it stopped. And only then did I hear a voice say — you’ve done enough, Be yourself — and so I am.

Thanks to Marla Bishop and her poem Indifference and Hope and her tag.

Caroline de Braganza P.G. Barnett Harley King Tom Byers Gurpreet Dhariwal Chris Hedges Sherry McGuinn Marilyn Flower Selma Amy Marley R Tsambounieri Talarantas and any others who would like to join. Enough being the new prompt.

Joe Luca is writer and editor for ILLUMINATION and a published author and writer of children’s stories, short fiction, non-fiction articles, screenplays and poetry. Publications include Child’s Life, Children’s Playmate and others. There are some other articles below — have a read. And thank you for stopping by.