Go as a River

by Shelley Read

The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.

I’ve come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary, like the deep and mysterious world beneath the surface of the sea.

love is a private matter, to be nurtured, and even mourned, between two beings alone. It belongs to them and no one else, like a secret treasure, like a private poem.

women throughout the ages, knew the value of employing silence as a guard dog to her truth. By showing on the surface only a small fraction of her interior, a woman gave men less to plunder.

The unforeseen ripple effects of an honest act do not make the choice less truthful.

A new life was unfolding before me. I never stopped questioning the choices of my past, but in the known world, each step surely unfurls the next, and we must walk into that open space, mapless and without invitation.

We are one and all alike if for no other reason than the excruciating and beautiful way we grow piece by unpredictable piece, falling, pushing from the debris, rising again, and hoping for the best.