Some people have been hurt so deeply
They no longer know how to accept love.
They have been repeatedly wounded
Until fear overwhelms them.
Their defenses scar shut.
They can’t bare their hearts to trust again.
Even these can find small salvations.
A lover, a child, a persistent friend
Might break through,
Might prove to them
That love is worth the pain.
That humanity
Has beautiful faces.
That they belong.
That they deserve
All the good things.
The dinosaur
Is so old
Its rheumy eyes
Can barely see out the cave.
The dinosaur
Makes no efforts toward the light
The dinosaur
Grumbles quietly to itself
And wishes it were dead
But makes no efforts toward death either.
It continues
Doing nothing
Never changing.
Trapped
In a world of its own making.
We live in loneliness
Anger, laughter, fear, love
We all have loss
We all seek redemption.
Upon these commonalities
Stories are built.
Strong foundations.
Because life as a human
Is also about what we share.
We need this sharing
To feel the same,
To remember that we belong,
To eliminate the loneliness.
something took a bite of me
and made off with it
i can’t remember what is missing
but i dream
the edges of its absence
For the unwanted children:
All the sparklike souls who have been wished, prayed, gut punched out of existence
The ones we feared we couldn’t feed
The ones our bodies couldn’t survive
The ones our shame would make the bearing of unbearable
The ones who sensed something wrong through the umbilicus
Swallowing too much adult stress
Growing into a faulty womb
Or missing some vital element
Feeling that they are too sick already, or misshapen
Who, being incapable of tenacity
Threw themselves into the sharp cold air or the filthy toilet water
Their parents ignorant, never knowing nor suspecting
That their future has just been protected
By their potential progeny.
Sarah D. Silvey 