Fall Open

There are days when the best you can do is keep yourself alive.
Keep breathing.  One in-breath becomes two.
Energy laden intakes of air become
a falling open of ribcage
to let the air climb in.

Let it in.

Rest on the out-breaths. 
Fall open, then slide
till air seeps out--
just stay quiet:
the motion keeps time with your pulse
and the movement
is keeping you alive as you
sit there.

Let it happen.

There are days when the things that hurt us
are the only things keeping us alive and sometimes
it's not about patching up the broken places
but staving off the storm.
Don't run.

Let yourself fall open. 

Invite fear in.
Breathe her away slowly,
let her seep into poems and prayers.
Fall open.  Let anger settle in your lungs and
release her
into song and unspoken melodies.
Fall open.  Let joy get tangled in your heart strings.
Untangle her slowly; nothing lasts so
fall open,
and open,
and open...
the inchworm measures her world in centimeters.
In her lifetime she will measure inches into futures
we never knew existed.