personal growth – April Belle

Oh Kali

January 28, 2018July 17, 2018April Belle

Healing comes from letting there be room for all of “this” to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy. – Pema Chodron

…
I am not walking away from myself today

Instead I sit and choose to burn

Anger rains down on me, ruby red coals

My heart expands in the bittersweet embrace of Kali

Memories collide and tangle, the pain expands

But I am finding myself in these flames

I am holding my heart as it bleeds

I am finding the mother the father the community the best friend I’ve never had

Here

Photo Alice Popkorn

The Daily Prompt: Angry

Two Hands

January 25, 2018July 17, 2018April Belle

I’m not angry any more

Chipped, like my favorite mug; not perfect by any means

I’m not sorry and I am sorry

Like two hands brought together in prayer

I don’t have the answers but I will bring those hands together

And wish us both peace

Photo: Alice Popkorn

Discover challenge: Apology

Wake Up

January 24, 2018July 17, 2018April Belle

It’s not that dreams are bad, they’re just not real. Not nearly as amazing as waking up.

On the one hand you have the familiar: your deep unhappiness, your pain, your familiar burdens. You’re mostly ok with that because you have dreams. Dreams of Better, More, Different, Improved.

And when you’re used to living small, you need dreams. I did. I do. But there comes a point when you need to choose the red pill. Or is it the blue one?

You choose to wake up and let your blankie go… you embrace your pain and your hurt. You don’t imagine a better future. You find your peace, your Self, in the present. Right where you’ve always been.

And maybe this time you’re able to face that like a warrior, like someone who remembers we’re not given more than we can handle. As long as you have you, is it (any of it) really so bad? Remember yourself? That sweet, amazing person who has been longing for your attention, possibly for years? Yeah. She’s right there. She has some things to say. And it has nothing to do with future achievement.

Photo: Alice Popkorn

Word prompt: Dream

Quagmire

January 16, 2018June 14, 2022April Belle

She felt her thighs quiver

Pushing her finger against her stomach an “Oh hoo hoo” escaped before she could stop it.

The Pillsbury Doughboy always had the last word.

And though she’d love to spend every last cent on fashion

She paused.

The quagmire was this:

Glossy images or better health? Shoes or self-realization?

Biting her nails, feeling her heart skitter like Chie Mihara heels against a hardwood floor,

She made her decision and closed the laptop.

Was it thunder she heard in the background or perhaps, just maybe,

Her integrity?

…

(Thanks to OSI for the writing prompt, quagmire.)
(photo by SashaW)