I’ll Ask You Only

Writer, teacher, student, daughter,

introvert, lover, poet, scholar.

All these describe you, but in the end,

I’ll ask you only to be my Friend.

 

A person who shares my deepest sorrows

and comforts me with fresh tomorrows.

One to who, I too, can lend a hand

when the ground around you is sinking sand.

 

Your passions, above all, I beg that you reveal;

and every stir of your soul they make you feel.

Your worries, also, please always expose;

my duty as Friend is to lighten that load.

 

Times of madness, times of brilliance,

ideas, wishes, dreams, experience.

Heavens and hells, comings and goings,

I pray you have these to overflowing.

 

The hurts will happen; don’t quake, Dear Heart!

They arise to make you more stalwart.

Without anguish, we would never see the Light.

Without pain, blessings wouldn’t burn nearly as bright.

 

The delights of your life I hope are so many

they drown out the heartaches you have, if any.

The tears you shed, some will be sad,

but with my help, joyful ones even more will be had.

 

We two, so different, and yet just the same

walk paths unalike, play contrasting games.

Our lives go on, ever changing, but in the end,

I ask you only to stay my Friend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Survive and Thrive Workshop: Prompt #2

Write about what keeps you up at night.

The things that keep me up at night aren’t the stuff of nightmares.
Instead, they are the memories of days past.
You see, when the world is asleep, it is the perfect time for me to reminisce
on what has been, and what could have been, and what is to come.…
In nights gone by, I HAVE been kept awake by worries,
those devious little monsters that wiggle into a person’s brain,
and scratch, scratch, scratch, with their wicked little claws.
I finally learned they only exist if I let them.
So I figured out a way to starve them out,
and I watched them, one by one,
as their emaciated bodies slunk away into the darkness.
These nights, I am kept awake by delightful things
like raging heartburn and stretching belly aches
due to pregnancy.
As irritating as these are, I suffer them gladly,
because I have waited almost a lifetime for this baby.
It gives me a chance to sit in the dim,
thinking on the things I will teach my boy.
I smile when I consider what a love for books I will impart on him.
Too, in these dark hours, I watch my Love sleeping,
and wonder if my son will have his nose,
and maybe those little smile lines around his mouth someday.
What is there to fear in the darkness?
Without the dark, the light would never look so glorious.