Beginning
Lit Up — June’s Prompt: Lucky Sentence
“There occurs in effect, a form of internal corporate downsizing, where the parts of us too afraid to participate or having nothing now to offer, are let go, with all of the accompanying death-like trauma, and where the very last fight occurs, a rear guard disbelief that this new, less complicated self, and this very simple step, is all that is needed for the new possibilities ahead.” From David Whyte’s Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
To walk into a new life is to walk out of an old one,
to leave behind familiarity, comfort, and belonging —
to plunge headlong into the turmoil of change,
into the grand rearranging of renewal
I have tried to stay frozen, forever fixed in time and space
but that only makes me a cold, unyielding weight
unable to bend in a warm embrace; a picture perfect smile
turned to the past, tethered to its unraveling promises
To begin is to end; it is a death the heart undergoes
to reshape its beating body to new vibrations, to be a better fit
for the path ahead. But the old heart dies and sometimes,
dies without having lived. An era closes, and that era may pass
unfulfilled. So I mourn that life more than its death.
As I grieve, vulnerable and in-between lives,
between what was and what might be,
I am scared that I too will die —
the whole of me, not just these parts,
because they’ve come to define me.
Who am I to cut roots? I fear
this is the end of youth; of dreams dreamed too long,
of dreams undreamed, of love held back,
words lodged between teeth,
thoughts pressed between moth-filled pages,
touches torn by trepidation,
of the heart’s clumsy showing —
its desperation and finally its demise —
and the unspoken pain before it can rise.
I am scared because nothing new can begin
until something old learns to die.
