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shanbake13

Parts


Glacier N.P., Going-to-the-Sun Road, August 2020 - Photo by Christina Adele Hon


You once told me that the very things I see as “shortcomings”

You see as beautiful, essential parts

Without which I would not be me at all

And because

Your word is a sword

I will take it

And run it across my own

Until it strikes through:


To the part that dances with shadows past

twirling memories back into the forefront

of the stage in my mind

thrusting them again

into the limelight:

Don’t go, please don’t go

Shine again, shine again

I will not call you “toxic nostalgia”

Your new name is treasurer

Because true treasures are not shut away

But looked over

And loved

And how lonely is the life

That will not even examine itself


To the part that makes much meaning of little

and ascribes purpose to all

combing over each detail

squeezing out understanding

until the thing itself is wrung dry:

You cannot pass until

I put you in a blessed place

I will not call you “overthinker”

Your new name is refiner

Because purity is not just stumbled upon

But processed

And proved

And how fragile are the thoughts

That are not tested with fire


To the part that unfurls its wings at a whispering wind

letting the softest breeze

spur feathers to flight

Making great, senseless shapes of small clouds

past, present, and future alike

Roaring at them

Laughing with them

Lifting them high

Or if they are not there yet

Demanding they appear

Bellowing from the skies:

I won’t lose you,

You, greatest of all

I will not call you “false hope”

I will not call you “childish dreaming”

I will not call you “fruitless yearning”

Your name is chutzpah

Because to the world it will seem insolent

A dogged, brash demanding

Or a wild, wayward wandering

All parts, foolish

But imagine

A life without hoping

And thoughts without dreaming

And a soul without yearning

And in that illusion I do find

The most terrible and fearful thing:

The deception of death

masquerading as life

And the loss of myself

The essence of me

Who was born to hope

Who was made to dream

Whose soul yearns because it knows


It is part of a whole,

and set wholly apart:

all parts, holy



Photo by Christina Adele Hon

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