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