Within Acceptance, Tomorrow
The past cannot be dismissed as unimportant in determining what comes after.
Within the here and now
Remains the impression of yesterday
A shadowed whisper
A call to remember
Not within the obvious grey layers
Where known thoughts tumble and collide
But in darkened passages
Where experience hides
Told it doesn’t matter
By those who dismiss it
With shouts of mindfulness
And the exhortation to remain ever present
It is like fingertips pressed into foam
Their form remaining then refilling
Just as holes dug in the sand
No longer seen when waves then come
No longer seen with eye perhaps
But change remains if but beneath
If only within molecules
To go unseen and thought removed
And so, as things forcefully submerged
Are wont to do
Not content to remain in the shadows
They struggle to be seen
And moreso, acknowledged
So to affect the world around it
Which is that which lies within us
And dictates all
For who among us when daylight fades
Wants not to be written in memory
Of those that were a part of us
With laughter and tears but not regret
Transforming even that once seen
With pebbled eye as tawdry sight
Now remade more generously
And carved as strength in melded minds
We cannot heed what others say
To take away what once was, is
To separate one from it’s twin
Will only leave a phantom limb
Respect and thanks for making real
Each aspect of our inner self
Creating, lifting personhood
From commonality that pales
to individual nature born
Stepping forth to struggle, grasp
And ransom soul from troubled tomb
Within us soft and sharp must meet
For contrast is the heart of that
Which depth of life we want revealed
Which comes not from ignoring pain
Of memory born on pitch black wing
Instead to sort each to its kind
And point them to their destiny
Allowing those that seek the light
To join the caretakers of our soul
As for the others grant them peace
Release them from their prison chains
And send them to a better place
For memory chooses not to harm
But sometimes must be helped, transformed
Every yesterday, holds within it
Today’s fulfilled reality
And tomorrow’s treasured promise
Natalie Frank (Taye Carrol) has had work featured in Haunted Waters Press, Weirdbook Magazine, Siren’s Call Publications, Lycan Valley Press and Zero Fiction among others. Her poetry has been featured in several anthologies. She is the Managing Editor for Novellas and Serials at LVP Publications.
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