Picking Up Roots

it all lives inside us:
illness, infection, disease -
and one day we won't fight,
we'll tire, and weakness
will creep into our defenses
doubt will control our minds,
and we will give up -
move off to find the white
light of darkness.

but before those days
of hopelessness and loss,
we must live.
seeking out the slivers of joy
subtle patterns woven into each day.

we must be bold, we must try -
for there is no feeling like 
a soft breeze on a sun-kissed 
cheek, to breathe life into your core;
letting you know you are alive,
if you let it -

hold life close
and know no fear
for you are a fighter, a survivor,
you are alive,
you owe yourself this brief moment, 
to live.

I look in on the world
and see its movements
through the scope of one
who has lived it before -
the same destructive path
fraught with the same
destructive, dangerous characters -
and I do not lose faith,
for though I have no recollection how,
I know we have been here before
and made it to the other side unscathed,
save for the memories
burned into our histories
to be ignored by our future selves;
doomed to suffer the same trials
for a different progress -
always lambs calmly 
traveling the same paths
to be shorn.

In the blue-black darkness
of a hopeful morning
you are the brightest star
slicing through the haze 
of doubt and sleep.

You reach down into the depths
of muddy murkiness
and pull me from my mind's stupor;
you insert the steel in my spine
allowing me to move forward.

In the face of questioning doubt,
you shield me with your sweet song
of reassurance, letting me know
I am good and can be free
to be me. You make me strong.

With deft hands you have built
me up, for you see the fragility
in me - you see all of me -
as though you lived in my head.
Go gentle; you can break me.