The Ways Through It

The Ways Through It

These are the ways through it:

One.

Imagine your body a tower.

Your blood is mortar, your bones turn brick,

you render yourself

impenetrable.

A fortress of your own creation,

the mote around your feet grows to ocean.

You push the tide outwards with your hands,

you, the sorceress, the magician, the controller of your universe,

you watch it retreat when it touches the shore 

and bring it back to you. 

Not this.

Your body

is not a tower

has never been armor

has never known how to still

to protect this beating heart

has only ever known

to care for her quietly, and these

are the ways through it:

One.

Imagine yourself a shadow.

A trick of light.

A terrestrial ghost for non-believers

neither seen nor touched- 

people think they saw you once. 

A two-dimensional emptiness that takes up

no space,

you spread yourself thin,

take up only the places that are

walked over, you

know all the motions of a person

living a life.

Stop here.

You earthly body of cells and breath,

you mortal energy of skin and blood

you make this being human

an art of love, of beauty,

you three-dimensional being of real,

how you breathe your heart,

your beating heart,

it is living, you are living,

and these are the ways through it:

One.

Find yourself unwrapped-

there are so many hearts left surprised by you.

Let them be amazed by your open

do not deny this world, there is such

creation within you

you blessed, holy being of love,

this is the only way through it:

the breaking, surviving

the moving, surviving

the healing, surviving

unraveling, surviving

the hoping, and ripping, and cutting

surviving,

it is here, it is waiting, it is real, and

this is the way through it:

One.

Imagine yourself growing.

Your branches, your stem, your leaves and petals

may be torn and scattered

till all evidence of you is ruined.

There are so many ways out of this life, but this.

This.

This is the way through it:

One.

Imagine your roots.

Your safe roots.

They are deep.

They are reaching,

embracing, grounding, holding,

and this 

is the way through it:

One.

Imagine your roots.

Your roots will never leave

this sacred ground.