Matchstick girl

wednesday, august 4
the lord's land, mendocino, california

back in hobbitville
the first night i arrived at my childhood cabin was like entering the dark night of my soul
physically
i felt afraid and alone in the woods
walking down the steep steps in the dark, alone
the cabin looming ahead of me somewhere in the dark and mists
and everything feeling ominous and gripping my body with terror
as if a man is there inside that door, waiting to hurt me
and i say to myself, psalm, what if there really was a real man there?
you would be able to handle that.
and somehow making it real makes it better
instead of a formless fear that is like a dark spirit and can morph into many forms
and knows the places inside my body so well
to trigger the fear and isolation

funny because
happy playful memories flash through my conscious mind
like polaroid photos of playing in the sun
of swingsets
and taking baths with my friends
and pet rabbits velvet fur
but my body is full of fear and sadness
and i have come to bring the darkness to the light
to see how the formless has formed me
to retrieve my soul

slipping back into the cool stream of childhood memories
memories are like water
and i dive back in
go deep
retrieve those parts of my soul
that were accidentally left behind
or
claimed by others
i am a woman now
and i have come back
to hold the girl
to soothe the wound
to love and heal
to wrestle with understanding
the dark places in the human heart
to make peace with where i came from
to be willing to see how it has shaped me
and to submit to the fire of being reshaped again
sometimes the hardest thing to let go of
is my pain
because who has known me so well,
so intimately as my pain?
how many nights have we spent huddled together
in the thin sham hobo fire of hurt,
warming our hands in the flame of memories like a matchstick girl
waiting for an angel
waiting for relief
even, at the darkest times, welcoming death
but someone had other plans for me

who has known me so well as my pain?
me and my memories
and how many times have we wept together alone in the shower
like a small hurting animal
who curls itself into a ball and protects itself from the world
even if it doesn't know how to heal itself, it knows to close ranks from the world
to spiral like open mouth of shell
back into self
and to listen to the sound of my own breath
like shell listens to the sound of the ocean
trying to crawl back inward to source
begin again
nothing last forever
least of all ourselves

but today the sun broke
and it was a new day
and i sat in the warm lazy light
and looked around, what is the now?
bare feet warm on bricks
gold toe rings shine in sun
violet dress
tan skin
snake tattoo
scar from flesh offering for prayer on left shoulder
wanna lick it
remember the sensuous animal of my body rising back up
the burning bush

violet dress
yellow dandelion
green grasses
wild golden wheat
skinny trees gray and dappled white skin
reach to the sky
aren't we all lost in our own prayers?
i ask for forgiveness to be more real to me
i ask to be less in love with the cross of my wounds
and more in love with the now
i ask for pleasure soon to fill my veins
and to be washed in the glory of love
dear lord, worthy or not i am stumbling home