Two Sides Of Surrender

I’ve grown brittle, inflexible
The tension straining my solid core
Skewing the notion of myself
Mocking my denial
I wonder if I shatter
Will it be a relief?
Will my broken pieces shoot into space
meteors flying past the moon’s dark shadow,
Until they sink back through the atmosphere
Pulling me down
to burn on reentry

The treasure’s lost its color
The gold long ago turned brown
With years of dust, crusted over
Like thick salt
You can’t scrape it away
Rubbing with fixed determination
Looking for the wheat yellow gleam
Of once bright coins
Hoping it will bring you back
To a place when shattered resolve
Wasn’t a goal,
Giving in wasn’t a victory

The New Garden

Your garden followed you
Its vibrancy and persistence
Marked a path to your new door
A bright line of summer lilac
And purple coneflower
Pointing towards home
Like sunflowers drawn to the light

He must miss you
Must see bits of you
Beside the decaying remnants
Of the old garden
The butterfly bush and hyacinth
Now overgrown, abandoned
Still attracting butterflies

But these gardens are our own
We can choose to plant them together
Or let one spend all the effort
Too much effort
While the other walks by
Ignoring all the signs
Until you are forced to rip it out
And leave the earth bare
Ready to plant something new

The hardest part of all
Is walking away from the pieces of you
That lie with every painted flower pot
And stepping stone
But what’s more tragic
Than holding onto things
That keep you from knowing yourself?