No More Than You Can Handle....

Don’t pander me with platitudes to try and ease this pain

nor pass along your empty incantations…

there’s nothing in the words that heal, and nothing to be gained:

when spoken rote, they won’t invoke your pathway to salvation.

I understand you’re just concerned and trying to express it,

but words alone ring empty in the hollows of this soul.

Sharing thoughts and prayers for things that could not be prevented;

sometimes there's just nothing that will make a person whole.

How many hurts does it take until we fall immune—

to numb this pain inside us that we carry on our own?

Is it on this rock-strewn path through which our souls are hewned,

inside such heinous places that we’re meant to tread alone?

I’m grateful for the ones who hear my pain without remark,

who listen without trying to think ahead to what they’ll say—

who, for a moment carry all the weight that’s on this heart,

knowing there are many things that words will not allay

When in the sea of empathy I feel that I might drown

I search to find the quietude, to find the strength I need.

It’s in the love I feel when all the walls come tumbling down

from those who understand and know that listening’s the key.

When life overwhelms, becoming more than I can bear,
don’t send to me your platitudes just let me know you’re there.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Image from Google Images: Masseu Learns to Sketch

Under a Cloud

The darkness spreads like an infection

while hate and anger breed, unbound

amid the lies and the deception

Each concocted interjection

turns into a battleground—

as darkness spreads like an infection.

Acting on some predilection

his mock pretention paramount

amid the lies and the deception.

Denials, constant misdirection—

our search for truth turns tantamount

as darkness spreads like an infection.

Has this become some strange reflection

of just how far we’ve run aground

amid the lies and the deception?

Another vote, a new election

praying for some turnaround…

as darkness spreads like an infection

amid the lies and the deception.

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Tribute

Be grateful for the little things

the laughter and commingling

the friendships and the fellowships

the quiet times alone

Be grateful for the scars and lumps

for life is messy, full of bumps

every wrinkle that we earn

attests to how we’ve grown

Be grateful for another breath

for all the trials and the tests

for there’s no light without the dark

honing strength unknown

And so we shed our outer skin

reveal our fortitude within

as twilight abdicates its grasp

we rise again, reborn

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Halo

Her indomitable spirit glows:

a beacon, a halo, emanating

between the broken pieces

the cracks and scars; the surface mars

from every trip, every slip,

every storm that’s threatened

to bring her down and drown her.

She is a survivor, not despite the odds,

but to spite them.

Fist first, she stands, again commands:

“I’m still here, you bastards,  

   “I’m still here.”

Living testament that it’s not about the fall,

but how many times she's stood;

how many times she's spit in the devil’s eye

and said:

   Nope, not today—

            …today is MINE!

© Ginny Brannan 2018

Image: Sculpture by Paige Bradley "Expansion, Third Life"

Inspired by two people that I know and greatly admire. That which would probably break the rest of us has allowed them to expand, to grow, to become stronger versions of themselves, and we are the better for having them with us.