Sweet, with a hopefulness of youth,
he says, "You have to put your baggage down."
What he has not yet learned is that sometimes the past
can grow like a cancerous tumor upon the back of
each of our internal Quasimodos, forcing us to bend at the
knees and cave to the weight of its nagging protuberance,
unstoppable in its coming, unable to reach around and face its
beginning,
our world is broken.
"I enjoy creative writing," she says to me, with a wink and a glance.
Together, we decide on the Tao of the Butterfly as a spring workshop
offering. "Let me know which dates work for you," I call after her
as she merrily departs our warm cocoon, nuzzled high in the San Diego sky.
My world is broken.
I know you read me, you see me, and, perhaps, you think you know something of me.
Do you know
my world is broken?
Do you know I need your help?
Do you know that I need YOU?
Not to mirror me, nor simply be my reflection, and not even to only play the role of a passive audience member, content in your silence and fulfilled by your witnessing, no. I need your voice and your story. I need your fullness of presence and your willingness to just show up. Please, dear God, just show up.
Because I need your help in writing all of my wrongs,
in righting all of my careless deeds and damaging left turns.
My world is broken.
I need YOU in this here and now,
standing at my side
lending your stoic support
because my world is broken
and I broke it
willingly
shamefully
without thought or regard
for tomorrow
for our children
for our children's children
I took and I took and
I take and I take
and still I somehow think
that I am more than others
and less than the whole
that my world is not broken
even though I did it
all by myself
like a spoiled, selfish child,
angry for not getting what she wants,
"Now, Daddy!"
and impatient with the time she is afforded
"I want it now, Daddy!"
I stomp my feet and wave my fists
I cry and I wail as my world falls to the ground
and breaks into a thousand little I's
"I want it now, Daddy!"
