Shortum #4: The Courage after Courage

Do it. Say it. But I'm scared. Maybe another time. What if I get so embarassed? Last time, I tried, I felt like a total loser. This time it will be impossible to get over it. No way.

20 seconds of insane courage.

To throw in the application form.

To utter the words you've been meaning to say.

To accept they have changed.

To say "No".

To drive a different route.

To believe you can be someone else.

Oh, the things in life that need such courage.

And the courage to continue such courage.

Grit

Commitment

Faith

Compassion

Believe

and above all, Love. 

Shortum #3: Soft-shelled Crab

She walks by the beach,

Two steps forward one step back,

Three steps to the front,

Softness beneath the feet, softness of a soft-shell crab.

Knees to the ground,

Feeling the gritty wet sand

while the sea feels the hem of her long skirt,

Translucent, raw, real,

Of bits of shell left behind,

Of color spots of a new growing shell,

Exposing all the rawness of an in between

that is not here but getting there.

Touch and it was cold,

But inside glimmers of true hope,

A beating heart encased within what vulnerable skin,

One large whoosh and it rides the waves,

A place that feels like belonging.

She walked by the beach, 

Two steps forward one step backwards.

Each step after, feels like hope.

Shortum #2: Star-Shaped Scar

Tomorrow,

don't tell someone that they are the star of your heart,

tell them about the star-shaped scar in your heart

Tell them that one point of the star which was caused by anger, 

the kind of anger that boils your emotions so strongly,

no words were uttered

Tell them the other point that looks shorter than the rest,

for it was carved the time you feel the smallest in your life

Tell them the point that follows the southeast on a compass,

a time when you were lost in life, and took a wrong turn at sea

Tell them the fourth point, the most deeply-etched one,

the one from your fourth love who was your first love

and therefore the deepest love

Tell them the last point,

the one that if they look hard enough

"is the second to the right"

and takes them straight on to your heart till morning

Tomorrow,

tell the star of your heart the scars in your heart.