Photo Challenge: Layered

 

It began with a word so small
and unspoken that it waited
in a bitter slick at the back of
your tongue, held in check,
afraid to trespass the air.
The rest of the words trickled
down the back of your throat,

left dangling with other threads
of hard yearning and numb
disappointment. Even a whisper is
too much. So little air can pass that
a sigh turns to a gasp, a strangle
self-inflicted but denied until it
bloats the body, stifling light and

intention. So bound by muzzles of
our own making, blue tints our lips
and the water in our eyes floods over
parched skin covering dehydrated
bones. Just feigning life, fearful of
judgment, our hands to our throats.
A feast of tears and angst is a hollow

meal. Let your ragged gasp bray out,
hack and spit those stale words to the
earth to be cleaned. Suffering is not
a sacrament to be lifted up for worship.
Raise your eyes instead to the blunt beauty
of clouds throwing shadows over the mesa,
the sun flashing crevices with blue light.

Anna Blake at Infinity Farm
Horse Advocate, Author, Speaker, Equine Pro
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Currently planning summer clinics in Scotland and the UK.
2018 is filling quickly; please contact me here if you would like to host a clinic or attend one. Check out our entire clinic schedule here. 
(WordPress Photo Challenge is a weekly prompt to share a photo–I enjoy twisting these macro prompts to share our micro life here on the Colorado prairie. I take these photos with my phone, on my farm. And then I write a poem. No psych, definitely not high-tech.)

This blog is free, and it always will be. Free to read, but also free of ads because I turn away sponsorships and pay to keep ads off my site. I like to read a clean page and think you do too. If you appreciate the work I do, or if your horse does, consider making a donation.

Anna Blake

0 thoughts on “Photo Challenge: Layered”

  1. “Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets , so love the people who treat you right, forget about one’s who don’t, and believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said life would be easy, they just promised it would be worth it.”

    Sent from my iPhone – Kathy

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    Reply
  2. “Suffering is not a sacrament to be lifted up for worship.”
    It would sure be interesting if more people understood this. Yes, bray it out loud and long and clear. Get rid of those feasts of tears, muzzles, hollow meals, anguish. Life is too short to wallow in that sewage. Bathe in the light, the rain, the wind. Let loose the joy.

    Reply

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