Our Judge's Prize winner in Poetry, Adult Division. Elizabeth is Chairman of the Okefenokee Heritage Center Writer's Guild. The Writer's Guild meets every second Tuesday at the Okefenokee Heritage Center at 7 PM
Those Days
by Elizabeth Welch
This is for the days when the air's been knocked out of you.
When life keeps winning and you don't have the strength to continue.
When you're standing on the end of the ropes and the darkness is dragging you back.
No air. No light. No hope for tomorrow.
Lying in the cold with no place to turn.
Completely alone.
This is for those days.
This is for the days when you can't get up.
When the threat of going through the motions makes you sick.
Every bone, every fiber of your being aches with the tumultuous affair of trying.
Trying to live. Trying to succeed. Trying to be all anyone else wants you to be.
That you want to be.
And as much as you try and you give, you can't pull yourself from the well.
The walls are too steep. No foothold can be seen.
When all you want to do is sleep.
This is for those days.
Every road and alley has led to this moment.
This is the exact right place you're supposed to be.
Even though it's not.
Even though every thing in your being says that it's wrong.
Everything in your being knows this is not what was planned.
There must be a mistake.
But there is none.
No road that you take has not been walked down before.
No step that is asked is not met without a loving hand.
A warm embrace.
A smile, a touch, a simple encouragement.
Keep going.
Hear the voice, the tiny one, the one you blocked out long ago.
The one that filled you with dashed hopes and bitterness at the dreams it held.
The love it shared.
The one that you turned off when you saw the staunch, cruel reality of the world.
Listen to it.
Hold onto it.
In that voice, the voice of dreams, lies the answers to your everything.
You are not alone.
Every road has been walked down ahead of you.
Every step, every stumbling block, was lovingly placed.
Learn, see, listen, and feel.
Feel the darkness and know it cannot take you.
Feel the anguish and know you will not despair.
Feel the solitude and know you are not alone.
Feel it in the wind through the trees. The breath through your lungs.
The beating of your very heart.
I am with you.
This is for those days.
Such a lovely, heart-sharing, hopeful & real piece of art. Spectacular!
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