Poetry | Mental Health | Mindfulness

Half Healed Wounds

And packages of hate

White hot bundles. Anger tightly wrapped with many lengths of twisted twine.

I held this burden close unwrapped it often and examined every reason. I remembered well. Justify.

I held each piece of blackened stone and sharpened glass. Turned them over, one by one, and deftly honed their edges.

I invoked a recollection, the close intense examination that reveals the pain. Savour.

I recalled the wrongs and sliced open half healed wounds. I swam deeply in the seething pool and swallowed daily doses of reminders and remembering choking on the bitterness.

My inoculation, a ward against hope, on guard against love. It shut me down. Lock.

I dreamed a revelation, of wasted years obsessing, crippled by the sour bile of my choosing. A change from righteous fever of angry justification.

It brought imagination, a new consideration, another way to be. Reveal.

I walked my weary bundles down a different path I held the wounded parts of me with gentle hands, gasping at the tender touch I had withheld.

I sipped a soothing liquid that quenched the blackened vessel of my heart.

Summoning the light, I breathed intention. I held it in my mouth, as a treasure, a small smooth stone that was a word. Forgive.