The beauty within us...

beauty rests on broken souls
with puddled promises and empty holes
where silence saddens and distance screams
and people ponder on love's deafened dreams

beauty lies in hollowed hearts
of those who dared to play the part
where once there danced a hope a dream
that's now replaced by in betweens

beauty covers those empty spaces
of lost heart words and warm embraces
and silent songs that fill our souls
when wounds of life have taken toll

beauty bares the truth within
and births the hope where love begins
when human thoughts have failed to heal
there beauty shines for LOVE revealed

Standing below...

Standing below you I saw above you

Your face blank with control

But in your eyes lies your soul

A glint of who you were

And now this place where you stand

Standing below you I see a hint of you

Your insides your silent cries

Pacing now you are thinking

Though nothing gives

I know the complexity of your thoughts

You you've always been one step ahead

Hands on hips it is your stance of I am

I can and I will be in control

You ask simple questions

And all along you know the answers

Never going too far into that place

That may take you home

There is comfort for you in not knowing

But even so I know the pain of your uncertainty

One glance here and there

Just enough to take me in

Into your thoughts if only for a moment

Walking away I see your hesitation

And if I were to call to you

I know it would break the silence

But there is peace in knowing

That you like me are hurting

So sudden a moment passes

And then we move into the next

I still believe in second chances

When love has healed our hearts at last

Standing below you I saw above you

Glowing embers in your hair

So sure to me are the things of my heart

And the one who led me there

Each moment that passes I am thinking

Never knowing but always believing... in you

Falling...

As I walked to the edge of my life as I knew it, past all of the people and things that I had loved, and all that I had lost, past familiar faces and places, and that place, my temporary home, I closed my eyes and listened to the comforting sounds that surrounded me. There I stood at the edge looking back at a world full of color, of rain storms and rainbows... back at everything that had made me, me.

There, as I teetered on the edge "my life" seemed so much more vivid, more real, and so much more of what I needed. Standing on the edge I felt such a longing to run back to that place of comfort, that place of security, and to the knowledge of that which I already knew. Standing there, toes curled over the ledge, there was nothing else to hold onto. Yet, I held on invisibly to all that was behind me. A sweet sense of security...

There, as I stood on the edge of what had been and what would be a gentle breeze began to swell into a gusting wind... I felt my body move against its rising force. Even then I continued to plant my feet firmly into the unsteady ground beneath me. My body stiffened to fight against what I knew was blowing in...

Then with a hesitant heart and with the last bit of courage within me I slowly turned into that which I knew I must face. Out into the unknown I raised my eyes. I was drawn into the vast openness that lay before me. Its shrouded vale of mystery flashed faint images of all that was beckoning me... calling my name... leading me. Flashes of those things that waited for me... of my hopes, my dreams, but more than all those hidden fears that lay within the deepest part of me. It was those fears that had kept me hanging on to "my life."

Stronger still the winds blew. I felt my strength weaken. Trying still to hold on, I turned my head to look back and reached one last time for the life I had always known. That all too familiar place of comfort and safety. Yet, something from out there called to me... A voice so sweet, so firm, and with such conviction that even as the winds rushed by me, this voice was all that I could hear. With the strength of a lions roar, and the gentleness of a lamb, I closed my eyes and heard the two words that I never wanted to hear... "Let go."

Suddenly, something deep inside of me released. My body drew forward and as the raging winds enveloped me, I felt not just my body but my entire being exhale. My knees grew weak. I spread my arms and with a half hearted attempt to catch myself I fell... And as I fell I remember the serene feeling that embraced me. An overwhelming sense of trust. A trust which I had never known. With a weightless heart and arms wide open I fell into the great unknown, into the love that surrounded me, into the knowledge of what had been and the uncertainty of what would be, into myself, my purpose, and "my life". Not the life that I knew but into the life that I had NEVER known... and for the first time in my life there was peace.