Unsent Note To Sister/Friend

Unsent Note To Sister/Friend

Are you delight-prone or accident-prone?

When you play your tunes, is it music to wallow to

on the uneasy listening station?

Do you miss the whole show

waiting to see who gets credit?

Did you name your closet, "The Holder of The Unworn?”

or "Things I Meant To Do Where I Could Wear These Clothes?"

Have you rigged your mind with explosives

of what might happen?

Are you the cold snap that changes summer to fall?

Did menstruation and childbirth teach you

to regard suffering as "natural?"

Do you live a hazardously wasteful life

trying to avoid pain?

I want to fashion a sweatshirt for you,

that has a burden-carrier stitched to the back,

a heart sewn on the sleeve,

a wheel rigged right to the shoulder,

and a big braided knot in the stomach.

Under it, I want you to wear an Ego Bustier,

to lift you up out of your mantle of despair,

into the bloom of boldness.

We are beautiful and complex as we age,

savvy to the unrealistic expectations and insecurities

that haunted us in our younger years.

We know that for a mother, we were given melancholy,

for a father we were handed absence.

They taught us (apparently) by parenthetical expressions –

tightly held brackets

inserted with slogans to live by.

They confined us faceless in a mirrored house 

where our imaginary friends: Pretend and Denial

taught us a game of excuses

called survival.

There is no assurance of ANYTHING.

There is no security even in nature.

Avoiding pain is no safer than running directly into exposure.

Life is a chocolate mess.

Let’s eat.

© 2009 by Kathryn Feigal. All rights reserved.