new day's year

You can't punish yourself into change. You can't whip yourself into shape. But you can love yourself into well-being.
Susan Skye

 

morning before sun,
the sky pale
white
light
soaking into night,
and yet I wonder
can this be day
when it's all so dark,
even as the thump and flash
of the new years bombs
still startle my heart?

and standing in the snow,
just as I stood upon that sand
where another wind
lifted up his ashes
and cast them on the sea of his dreams,
I see that the heart never lies,
even as life passes
right through me
like a wind
that does not catch me up anymore,
so insubstantial is my being
in this long and dreadful sadness,
my heart remains
confirmed in its wanting,
safe in its secret harbour,
what I really feel is mine.

and yes that's anger that you feel,
you knew this to be true before me
and yet you still risked,
and yes that's guilt I feel,
and so I live with a dogged shame
nipping at my beastly heel
as I wander in the wind
that I have trusted to deliver me
for all these years,
my only guide when all there was for me
was instruction,
and someone else's rules to follow
regardless of the fit,
the wind that has smoothed me flat
and featureless,
and empty as an autumn beach.

no more of this.
I will shape myself,
grain by grain,
into a design of my own,
just as my heart desires,
just as my soul requires.