Lifting the clouds

for Flora Kiebert--

If I could whisper into your ear

I would hardly know where to start

I'd say I don't know how or why

but I understand your sadness

I'd ask about your existential crisis moments

so we could compare

I'd thank you for your humor

and the compassion

if only it could have soothed the anxiety

or lessened other symptoms you faced

If I could send whispers to your 

heart and mind

which created a salve that 

could erase that unique suffering

I would do so in an instant

I would wipe away your worries

I would soften all that prematurely 

hardened you

so you could live in a softer, more gentle 

and protected existence

all the shame and mystery around

mental illness would lift

like clouds that have somewhere else to be

I would see all the limitations that shackled you

silently

and use my private powers 

to set you fully free

I can be the solution

“You always were the fat one”

(Dedicated to Julia Miller)

And I leaned into my stunned silence
And I tried on new outfits of shame as
A byproduct of her words
When I heard her say it, I was too young
To realize it came from her own pain
It was a direct inheritance of her shame
How many times had she hated being in her own skin, after the meals she served and the comfort she provided had nourished her kin?
What is it, that turns Mothers and grandmothers against themselves, and then in turn, against their kin? Is it the
Misogyny woven into religions and cultural practices and countless messages from within families and from friends?

Who needs overt enemies when the forces that be have helped us build internal worlds hell bent on self abusing tactics?
Or is it a partly accidental and yet vitriolic fervor that runs rampant through our minds? Whatever the causes, I can be the solution. The power and devotional energy within me can transform not only the stinging left by her words but the pain and shame left behind by countless wounds within my female lineage, stretching back farther than we have records for.

I can embrace my own body, the miracle of its living strengths, the beauty from the combination of ancestral dna patterns which also give me the opportunity to experience human life. I can own the discomfort and insanity of being a woman in this world.

I can love the cells and dna in me that are literally a part of her living on inside me. I can love her unconditionally, in a way she probably never loved herself. I can own and heal the parts of me that have been fragmented but come back together in the space of love.

I can allow all those who really love me to also love her as she lives and becomes healed and whole inside of me. I can honor her in ways she would have never honored herself and in so doing, end unnecessary suffering.