I Miss The Passion.
By Karen Whitney LaVohn
I miss it.
The passion.
The overwhelming feelings of a life out of control.
The emotions scalding chasms through my life.
Leaving scorch marks.
Deep pulsing scars.
New channels formed from seething lava.
The intense, addictive, delicious.
Strong-brewed mouthful of new-found love.
Slightly sweet, intoxicating, sometimes bitter…
Never completely satisfying,
but warming from the inside out.
My entire body electrified and alive,
my mind challenged and racing,
more creative than any other time in my life.
The words flowing with joy, happiness, love.
Becoming one with a compatible soul,
losing where I start and another begins,
finding myself in the reflection
of the oldest, strongest vision of humanity.
I miss it.
The heartache.
The overwhelming sadness
that makes it hard to breathe.
The heaviness in my soul
that feels like grappling hooks
attached to the earth’s core.
The loneliness
that pulverizes me
into shards of brokenness.
The intense, raw emotions
that erupt sporadically
in geysers, in trickles, in dam breaches.
Words flowing to relieve the pressure
of emotions too hard to bear alone.
Surprising realizations.
Achingly beautiful imagery.
Satisfaction in the honest portrayal
of things gone terribly wrong
Creativity a necessary survival mechanism
in the slow healing process.
I miss it all.
The highs and lows of emotional turmoil,
the passions that drive me to write
lest I spontaneously combust,
for fear of holding it all inside.
Now I feel nothing.
Like congealed fat,
pleasantly wobbling along.
Not too happy,
not too sad.
Just there.
Waiting for something.
To begin percolating
so I can write again,
waiting for that image
that stays in the back of my conscious thought
And won’t leave me alone until I write it down
To figure out the message the universe
is trying to share through me.
I need to find the flint.
The creative spark,
that I can create on my own,
without relying on unstable external heat sources.
I need to find my internal light,
this little light of mine,
that will not hide under any bushel.
No.
I need to let it shine
with my own power.
Rising up from my inner core,
bringing acceptance,
and light,
and love,
and starstuff
into every fiber of my being,
igniting my congealed layers
of pleasant nothing existence
into a passion for creating
that will astound every expectation
I have for myself,
and light those around me
with an eternal flame
of knowledge.
My true life,
bubbling and swirling,
escaping in geyser bursts
into the universe.
*****
Karen Whitney LaVohn is a mother, teacher, musician, writer, baker, and so many more things. She currently lives in Miami, FL, and graduated from Rice University in Houston, TX. She is trying to ‘find herself’ through her writing as she goes through her midlife rebirth.