there there - for lou

You may remember the offer. Lou is someone who took up the offer and the first person without a web presence to do so. She had jotted down some thoughts and we talked about them over a fantastic lunch she cooked yesterday. She is also a talented photographer. The thoughts aren't getting reprinted here but we are getting some of the quotes she provided.

"my life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue, an everlasting vision of the ever-changing view” – Carole King
“I’m sensitive and I’d like to stay that way” - Jewel
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.” - Kahlil Gibrahn
“most people live lives of quiet desperation” Thoreau
“we are only as sick as the secrets we keep” Sue Atchley Ebaugh
“pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional” Kathleen Casey Theisen
“we are all so much together but we are all dying of loneliness” Dr Albert Schweitzer
“the greatest gift we can give one another is rapt attention to one another’s existence” Sue Atchley Ebaugh

And now without further ado...

There There

For 35 years,
I have worn you.
I have grown you,
stretched and
moisturised and
bronzed you.
I have tended you,
my beautiful boundary.

I have fed you
with the caresses of others.
They have traced the veins
that lie just under you.
They have run their fingers
through the hairs
that break your surface.

I can't remember when
I realised that you were
holding me back.
Maybe when the butterfly
landed on us in that meadow.
Or perhaps the sun's nagging,
gossamer impact over decades.

I have been cushioned, comforted, cordoned.
I want to feel the world unguarded by you.
Every touch overwhelming,
a glorious agony of contact.

I start pulling you
behind my left ear.
You let go of me with some reluctance.
I unwind you like a veil,
like bandages over a healed wound.

A breeze dabs my muscles
and feels like a tornado.
I know now that the sun
is a vast nuclear furnace.
The others hold me,
even though it stings.
The others hold me,
and let me whisper
my frayed, flayed hopes
into their ears.

Download the mp3.