poetry

Growing Pains. {poetry}

 

Do you remember the rickety creaks and groans of your bones as you grew up? I remember it clearly if I stop and close my eyes.

The near constant dismay of my muscles learning to expand across the length of my very structure as I stretched into the shape that would carry me over my journey. Although I stopped at a shocking five foot four, it seems my heart and soul had so much more in store for me. I continue to have these growing pains, although I suspect they come from another source entirely.

They come from a source of unlearning societal norms and ingrained behaviors, and reacting to others’ perceptions with feelings of insecurity or inadequacy. Developing the ability to not only speak, but to live one’s truth regardless of consequence. Standing tall fearlessly — fierce, raw, and full of love — full of love yet not withholding a mind for truth, justice, or consequential effect from various circumstantial causes.

Becoming everything one should be, with respectful disagreement to the projected views, speculations, and opinions of others. The shedding, or burning away, of all that you are not, and stretching, yearning, expanding, growing into all that you are.

***

There’s an ache in my bones…

… Y’know, the kind that rolls in with the storm.

The kind that goes, “Oh, honey, this is just the beginning.”

The kind that changes form.

The kind that reminds you, you’re among the living

… The ache that starts from the marrow

And builds with every heartbeat

Growing ever outward —

An invisible show

Only noted by how you move your feet

The pulse that jumps under the skin

Fanning the breath of an inward flame

The growling of something subtle… and thin

Transparent as the lines on your face

The sudden jump within a beat

And everything in between

… And this ache that grows, they call it growing old

But those whose eyes have opened know

This ache is nothing so small

As aging on a human frame

Our canvases worn and engraved

This ache is bred from experience

And settles in silence

A thought that expands beyond the confines

of any singular or collective mind

And with each footstep is another piece to find

But here, with how we are,

With the journey insofar —

It is respectively endless in perception

And we’re left with this intricate web of interpersonal connections

Forged through confessions

Throwing our hearts on the page

Bleeding our souls through ink and paint

Until we’ve cried raging rivers that have led our bodies to drought

These lines that are made from living hard in something so delicate

We become minerals that feed the supernova of self-awareness

Atrophied in the current paradigm;

We’re starved for the meaning of existence

And this ache in my bones… she sighs as my marrow moans

Because she’s the quiet before the storm,

And she knows better than I do

What it takes to break the mold.

So patiently I wait, as I hold this ache

Close to my own —

Though it is not mine alone —

But for everyone to shoulder.

Surely, we will all falter,

For what is it to be human than to learn from mistakes?

To love, despair and rage?

To kiss, fight and embrace?

So I wait for that storm,

Holding the ache in my bones,

Waiting for the waves to crash into the shore

To shape what is to come.

I breathe in the echoes of voices long past —

Whispers of who I once was,

To who I’ve stumbled into,

Who, respectively, will most likely not last.

Change is a constant in our seasons,

And with every shift, every death and rebirth,

An unknown reason

So I question not this ache in my bones,

This growl and grumble of growing on,

Of learning the truth of Home.

***

Heather Climer is an amalgamation of stars and pixie dust, in never-ending motion through the range of human emotion, striving for conscious evolution. She believes in hope, in love, and in you. She’s learning how to be splendidly imperfect, and strives to help others do the same. She feels the sound and color from every shape, and breathes it through her paintings, her writings, musings, and her guitar. She can be found climbing trees, puddle-stomping, or whispering to the fairies that pass by her patio at 3 a.m.

***

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