work in progress

Compassion

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Thu, 26 May 2022 00:01:18 GMT

We each live our own truth,
Spun by minds different as can be.
History shapes our perceptions,
Neurons firing with altered chemistry.

Yet the emotions we all feel,
Are as kindred as can be.
Borne from the same condition,
Etched in the rubric of humanity.

The first time Joy of a child, 
Smelling a freshly bloomed rose.
Or the melancholy of an old man
Reminiscing his deceased love's ghost.

The fury of a woman, 
shown her body doesn't belong to her.
Or the courage of girl,
Breaking free from the male-bodied herd.
 
One's own experiences are alas finite,
To the ripples we make with our own years.
We can multiply life's meaning by infinity
Feeling the joys and sorrows of our peers.

But fishing in the sea of compassion,
Our net is only as wide as we allow
Ourselves to feel for ourselves
Can't provide when we live without.

Through the footage of our own choices
For which do we still self-punish?
Can we learn to accept our character,
Like a mother would have done?

Replay the emotions like an old record,
Listening for the high and low notes.
With the steadier ear of a conductor,
Offer the support you would've hoped.

Only when we accept ourselves
can we ameliorte our own misery,
Then we can begin to feel compassion
And understand suffering universally.

Authentic

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Tue, 24 May 2022 21:51:18 GMT

Am I the most myself
When I am all alone?
Free from others’ judgement,
All the feelings and thoughts I own.

But the voices of the critics
Don’t enter through my ears.
They emanate from within,
And they’re borne from past cried tears.

Too fat, too skinny, too dumb, too lazy,
Worthless, useless, inadequate, and crazy.

These adjectives we conform to
To make us “accepted” by society,
Are dungeons created by our minds
Guards armed with shame and anxiety.

When we take a broader look around
See everyone else serving their terms,
We realize no one else is judging us
With nearly as much cruelty or concern.

We all suffer from the same condition
Of being too afraid to be seen.
So at the risk of rejection we can dismissively say,
“They never knew the real me.”

Yet we profoundly underestimate
Our deep need to be understood.
Over time if we abandon ourselves,
Our spirit loses its shine for good.

We find it hard to fully own
The power we have within
To completely shape our realities
It’s safer to never begin.

The most courageous among us
Will undergo this quest.
Plunging into their greatest fear
of being outcasted by the rest.

But that is just a distortion,
One we can’t fight at face value.
To disarm the guards of the dungeons,
You have to look within you.

The blueprint to your inner self,
You already knew at birth.
The keys to being your absolute truest
are acceptance, compassion and self worth.

Distortions

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Mon, 23 May 2022 21:15:24 GMT

You saw fire and imagined a home
You saw cattle and imagined a settlement

You saw a weapon and imagined your throne
You saw a sign and imagined a testament

You saw a woman and imagined ideal love
You saw a child and imagined a dynasty

You had an idea and imagined an opus
You saw your reflection and imagined autocracy

You saw some ore and imagined an industry
You saw code and imagined singularity

You heard a note, imagined a whole symphony
You saw a moment and imagined eternity

Imagination convinces you it’s real.
To not have it is to have lost

Something you’re already convinced you own
Which you value above all cost.

Our minds create our realities
Our spirits committed to the cause.

The culprit of the distortions is hidden
Our ancestors inherited from the gods.

Vulnerable

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Mon, 23 May 2022 12:40:16 GMT

When a soul is born it is just a heart,
To be surrounded by purest love,
To be cushioned by absolute comfort,
Exposed and receptive to the whims of above.

Programmed to survive, yearning to thrive
By connecting to other hearts.
Every smidgen of experience becomes self,
Preparing to cope as she departs.

Despite best efforts, life does its thing,
Irrevocably, passersby leave craters,
Sometimes out of carelessness, occasionally cruelty,
Criticisms, rejections, violations, and haters.

Astroids crashing into an atmosphere-less planet,
Her sensitivity intensifies the encounters.
Her soul almost shatters against the abrasions,
She was nearly broken when they found her.

Years pass and she grows a shell,
and a predictive missile defense system.
Fully equipped with reactions to deflect, stories to protect, and beliefs to reject,
Obscuring how much she missed him.

Defense mechanisms just as precise
At keeping out love as keeping out threats.
She feels safe again, but she is alone,
Desperately aching to connect.

Longing for her days of just being a heart,
To be surrounded by purest love,
To be cushioned by absolute comfort,
Exposed and receptive to the whims of above.

Mothers

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Thu, 12 May 2022 15:26:13 GMT

The minute you find out
That a life now exists inside of you and because of you,
Your own fills with boundless meaning and becomes less important in a moment.

Your heart overfills with love, 
Constantly replenished by the springs of your new found purpose.

It feels warm, supple, resilient and expansive.
It fuels, empowers, and calms you.

This love guides your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs like a North Star.
You gain empathy for all mothers, for all people, knowing that someone feels this way about each and every one of us.

It’s this love that created all of our first realities.
It’s this love that powers society,
steering it in the direction of goodness.

That gave every little human a chance to see the beauty,
That reminds every little being that they are safe.

This love spills over in concentric circles around all new life.

It’s radiant and endless.

It’s the fuel of humanity.

Abandoned

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Sat, 30 Apr 2022 21:30:59 GMT

the world narrows, and darkness fills in thick

where once there were shining stars.

the detailed paths bridging to them

fall away like a house of cards.

all my powers leave, and I’m trapped and alone

at the pit of this deep well.

my body vanishes, my mind blanks,

my soul languishes in hell.

there is nothing here, just deprivation

and my most agonizing thoughts.

default to hunger, thirst, and loneliness,

my only sensation is loss.

the only option now is to wait

to be rescued from this void.

can only wither in the meantime

another second I’ll be destroyed.

ticks and tocks turn into years

losing a sense of time.

suddenly! a glimpse passes by

I can almost visualize the climb.

a brief flash of a chance for relief

in a split it’ll be gone again.

now is my only chance to save myself

to free myself from this distain.

Reality

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 03:00:18 GMT

Our minds are not built to perceive reality

But a constant swirl of emotions and thoughts

Steering us away from perceived pain and towards salvation

Bifocals minimizing our worth, intensifying fear

To get out of this sad hole, we build

Our bodies, our stuff, our families, our companies

We build to right the wrongs only we see within ourselves

The bigger the distortion, the grander the ambition

If we could only see and accept that we are human,

that we are born worthy of love just for being

If we could feel our worth by just feeling

Society would grind to a halt, and we would all starve

:-)

Lost

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Wed, 09 Mar 2022 13:31:44 GMT

We run marathons to be still; 
we build cities to be alone.

We waste time to be productive; 
we waste money to get rich.

We create noise to find signal; 
we create drama to find calm.

We propagate hate to signal virtue; 
we hurt loved ones in pursuit of love.

We empower dictators to foster freedom; 
we fight wars to protect peace.

We use control to teach agency; 
we use dogma to teach creativity.

We seek validation to find purpose; 
we reaffirm biases to grow.

We drug ourselves to get clear; 
we lie to ourselves to tell the truth.

There are two parts within each of us, 
working for us and against each other.

Divided by the ego, united by the self, 
but repelling one another to keep us sane.

We have this illusion of control, 
we think we know ourselves.

But if we aren’t aware of their conflict 
and learn to love each part,

They will run us against ourselves, 
and we’ll be eternally lost.

Doors

wendyeatworld@newsletter.paragraph.com (work in progress) — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 18:21:51 GMT

Enter something, maybe. 
Leave something, definitely.
Fascinating before, unbounded. 
Disappointing after, finished.

Prefer to walk on by 
lost in the possibilities of
Doors we could enter rather 
than Doors we have closed.

Perhaps we fear that 
inside one of them
is a scene that entices, 
a dream that consumes.

A possibility that beckons you 
to leave everything behind
as you enter the abyss 
and close the door behind.

Much better to dream on 
and imagine instead.
A good reason to walk past 
those pesky doors doors doors.