measured

I can see you. You are sitting on the same rock as I did when I lived at home. Your deep black hair floating in the wind. I see the tears too, they’re the same bitter salt as mine were. You inhale the ocean deeply, both fed and burdened by it. Is there anybody out there? Is there anywhere beyond this?

Your heart is longing for a life beyond these invisible walls. You do not know another way. For generations, your hands and all of those hands before you, knew the way of the skin, the wool, the soap, the birthing of fishermen. You are delicate, but you are as stern as steel. As cold as the Atlantic.

We do not use our words. We use our breath. Our eyes. Our pause.

You did not find God in this harbour, nor any cove or inlet. You found duty. 

I think that perhaps, I have been quietly quitting my entire life. Always wanting something different, to be someone different, never feeling settled and whole. How do you break a pattern? You tell it where not to go, and watch it go there confidently.

This is the measure of a woman.

In earnest,
M.

#poetry #nightthoughts #melancholy

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