The Ministress' Black Veil

A veil to hide one’s face from view, is this not what I’ve done?

To make something appear as other than what it is?

Black, for the reflected objects thrown between the eyes beneath

And the veil before. Black, for the times they refused to shine.

Black. Because there was a time they could not see at all.

Redemption is the story in reverse, all tragedy so.

Once I was blind, but now I see. Once I could see, but now am blind.

How do you find your place in life when you aren’t sure of which direction you face?

One mind becomes another when we change it, but

Until it changes again, we can never know how it was wrong.

Any mind we are in is the right one, regardless of right,

Because any mind we are in is the only one we can see.

How could I, God, how could I have been so wrong?

Is the mantra of the blind made to see, or do they?

Change is the only constant; they will always see something more!

Or less, perhaps? Because who can tell, fickle humans?

Perhaps we are all always reaching toward the light, or at least ought to

And with each handful of earth we excavate as we crawl on hand and knee

We are apt to think, this is the one! The last barrier to my sight!

Only to find that mountains lay before us yet in their might, majesty

This clod of earth was childhood, this was high school, this

Was anorexia, this was depression, this was failure, this was

Illness, this was fear, this was those who stood in our way, they

Are behind us now. Because something is hard is never a reason to quit trying,

The opposite is true. For the child learning to walk, for the boy shrugging

Off the bully, for the girl cramming food down her unwelcoming throat,

If they were to stop trying, their struggles will have not only been fruitless

They will have been destructive. In this way, traveling toward the light

Is so closely related to delving in to the dark it is difficult to distinguish.

They are veiled, but not in iniquity. Only to shade their faces from the onslaught

Of dirt raining down upon them from before, the landslide

That threatens to push them back to the start. But these

Are the times, the times when holding on seems most impossible,

That it is most important. And maybe those of us who have it “easy”

Should spend a little less time kicking dirt behind us,

And a little more looking out for who is there. Which applies to all;

Behind every climber is another in the unending human chain

Behind every veil is another pair of eyes that long to see

The Love Song of _. ______ ________

“Why is every song a love song? It’s the only place where love is still alive and well. And why do we always sing along? Because these are our hymns”.

Hymns, we sing. By definition, obviously. We all sing. By nature, inevitably. Inevitably, we hymn. Sing –

to the untouchable, to the better, the highest. Sing – to the beautiful, the handsome, the hottest. Sing – to the only one we could ever want until one day they’re no longer wanted. Sing – because we have no choice. Sing – because emotion chokes us. Sing – when we can’t breathe, we can’t talk, we can’t see, we can
sing –

Because we can’t help it. Life is racing by us faster

And faster; at once it’s a rope that tugs you along, then

No sooner than you can get a good grip it’s a tumbling stream

Of water running through your hands. It gives me no end

Of aggravation, and you hear me scream and cuss because

Sometimes I just can’t hold on and that’s why I need YOUR hands.

That boy over there? He’s beginning to look like a man now

But on the inside he’s shaking, every day inching, closer

To graduation and he’s scared, scared stiff

To stare life in the face. Sometimes he swears there is no way

He will get on in life and that’s why he needs HER hands. That girl?

There’s no place she goes without her friend by her side, who

Has a kind word on her lips and an open heart always, who

Yesterday found a lump, and tomorrow will know how long and

Sometimes she swears nothing in life is fair, but if it had to be someone..

She knows she’ll have a hand to hold. There are women and men,

Who walk in and out of each other’s lives like specters in the broad daylight

And maybe they will never know what it has been like

To really live their lives? But that won’t be me in twenty years, I won’t

Be the one to lay back and be swept along, the current to comfortable chairs,

Luby’s lunches and early bedtimes, that won’t be me. I’ll be the one, you’ll see me,

Latching hands as I go, building a force to be reckoned with, leaving no one behind,

A wall of bobbing persons in the river, each one of them my friends, my loves,

I will latch hands with the lonely and the broken, the happy and the exultant,

The forgotten, the bothered, the busy, the mindful, my sisters,

My family, my darlings each, each and every one

Damming up Time until it must stand still, it simply must because

Until it does, we will.

The Story of 5th Hour

A heart trouble indeed – aren’t most troubles so?

Mine have always been. And how many times did I fly

Weeping into the arms of my women kin because some such had torn me apart?

Was I looking for comfort or camaraderie, or was the game in its entirety enough

To satisfy the intense and throbbing boredom of my soul,

Such screamingly painful monotony, that “please, God

Whatever you may do to me in this life else, just take away this cup;

Bring any other poison from the circles of Hell but don’t

Allow me to lay here on my bedroom floor, waves of emotionless

Pain wracking my body for any one second longer!”? Here lies the journal

I kept in those days, flopped open to a page that is doting and meek

At the start, but runs the blue gauntlet down to an entry

Scrawled in all capital letters as by some demon’s hand

“I HAVE ANTS IN MY BONES IN THE VERY MARROW OF MY BONES!!!”

What is it that has been done to me? I was a girl once, that is to say

I was when I met him. The past two years had proven so tumultuous,

My crash landing upon my eighteenth birthday found me very timidly

But startlingly a woman.  And it is that way that he died,

Symbol of the other life I led, the one

Before, that time helped me, without regret, leave far behind

He lies buried somewhere I know quite well

Beneath books and student loans, peeking through

Facebook posts I feel no longer his essence in the night when I lie

Alone, or in the day when I hum a tune, his presence is finally

Divorced from me. I smile now, a genuine smile, a braces-free

Bursting-with-self-confidence-the-sort-of-person-who-makes-friends

And-keeps-them-hello-how-are-you-good-morning-professor

Hey-girl-deadbolt-your-door-I’m-coming-right-back-did-you-hear

What-happened-over-the-weekend-let-us-strive-for-that-which-is

Honorable-beautiful-and-highest-smile. A happiness, contentedness,

Interest, passion, romance, spirit of youth, spiritual experience

Long island iced tea induced smile. A smile is a realization

Of what we have been missing, it is in surprise that our lips turn

And our mouths stretch, the same bodily chemicals that shoot upward

Must both shock and please us, pleasure being inherent surprise

One hand assaults the left chest in a misguided attempt to control

What races there beneath; we close our tired, world-cared eyes

For only a moment to breathe in sharply

Then once more to exhale slower and slower

Until we need not worry about the things of this world,

Until we need not even live any longer

An independent smile fills its purpose