I Am Forever in Debt to You, My Knight. {poetry}
{source}
I am a feminist. I don’t need saving. However, I am also a person who has suffered, in the midst of her life.
And as much as saving myself is continually put upon me as the best option, in this poem, I am picked up and set free by someone who loves me beyond their own needs and has returned me to myself.
***
And you left me there…
… torn nails on my fingertips
From dragging my heart across your hard surface
With scathing silence
I understand my fate
You left me there…
… to die… the trees watched over me, chanting your name until I was deaf
Starved of your love and affection, I became weak
My hunger was at first a moan, a cry,
but soon I began to knaw on my own thoughts,
and know that soon if there was no answer,
I would shrivel from a lack of kindness and peace
You left me there…
… it was dark and cold, the soil under me was not grounding.
I had walked a long way, but seemed like I had circled back to the same spot
The only thing I could feel was my heart, which had pounded so hard
At the beginning, it was merely a faint murmur
I just waited
For my heart to crumble in a million places
I never knew existed
You left me there…
… but you,
you found me…
… you gently covered me in a warm blanket, the heaviness softened my shoulders
You kissed my forehead before I knew who it was
You lay me across your beast
It knew of my journey and my sorrow, and had strength and girth to carry me
All three of us gently trod from the deep woods
Of my heartbreak
We were met with water and light
The view surprised me
I forgot that there was life there
I forgot that the world had peace
I forgot the beauty in itself would save me
You fed me, my knight
You nourished my soul with your hands
Your lips gently reminded me of my worth
You touched me, my knight
Not in the irritated way I had been touched before
But in a way your hands were magicians that molded and shaped my body in them
You knew where I was injured
You touched me there
The blanket you wrapped me in was symbolic
It lay beside us
As a memory of less happy times
Of less love, less kindness, less understanding
It was wet and damp from the journey,
grey wool, drenched in both energy and surrender
It now lay crumpled; it had purpose and
It was listless knowing it had served me well
And now I am warm in my own skin
You still warm me at night, my knight
It’s as if you are the fire my soul sits by
and the hearth which my heart sits against
You still ask me without asking, my knight
If I need anything else
How beautiful in a cold world
To have been saved
By the person
Most needing to save themselves
But who chose to save me instead
In the hearts of men,
In the minds of women,
Lies the place in which the surrender is
A place in which one is both the savior and the saved
I am forever in debt to you,
My knight.
***
Jodi Wium is a depth psychologist studying the work of Jung at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Through life and loss, she has learned where her heart belongs, and hopes — through her writing and her research — you do as well. Namaste.
***
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