Bravery

What is bravery? Courage. What is courage? Bravery. I love this stuff. It is a quality of mind or spirit that allows a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear. Other than military imagery of facing the enemy and facing death, what does bravery look like? How do I capture a quality of mind or spirit in an abstract photograph? What is the shape of fighting through fear, striving for acceptance through grief: running toward something instead of staying frozen in stasis or running away? I haven’t played with my footprint filters in a while. Maybe, I can do something with them.

I received my early reviewer’s copy of L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 38 that I won from Library Thing today and the first illustration shows a girl running toward a giant monster, its mouth open, dripping saliva over jagged, pointy teeth. She looks brave. But it’s also incredibly brave just to share a poem, or stand up and read to an audience. It’s brave to get out of bed, get dressed and face another day of grief and loss which is the prompt for today’s Poetics at dVerse Poets Pub. Lisa challenges us to choose one or more of Kubler-Ross’ stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) to write about, in relation to our, or another’s, current state of being.

The Poem

So many years wavering

Is it a betrayal,
this acceptance?
It feels like I’ve given
up on something
by acknowledging
this reality.

Though I knew
it wasn’t possible
that this was temporary,
only a way-station
in Purgatory,
it felt like wrapping
myself in a soft, warm
blanket–that false hope–
I could wake up
in from this nightmare.

If I only learned my lesson
or did the right thing here,
I could have it all back again
and you–not the mean dream
you, rejecting me over
and over, making me
so sad that I don’t
sleep anymore, but
the real you, I’m
electrically attracted
to will wrap me in that
warm, soft blanket
and hold me tight,
your stubble poking
my cheek and my neck.

It’s so hard to accept
reality’s betrayal
and yet, I feel
calm promise
knowing that
nothing I do or say
can fix this.
This is my day
to stay in:
this moment
is mine to lose.