by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
I’m sorry
you find yourself
saying more often.
It’s because you’re emotional,
you cry at the least little thing,
your kids are looking at you
with those worried faces.
You apologize because you
feel guilty for worrying them.
You apologize because you
think you shouldn’t be crying.
You apologize because you
believe that’s what they need.
They don’t.
All they need is yourself,
all of it,
right now in this moment.
All they need is to feel
the never-ending
warmth of love,
still settling around them,
and even tears cannot carry
that away.
This is how
you love in spite of melancholy.
This is an excerpt from the book of poetry, this is how you live, available in both ebook and paperback form.
(Photo by Marco Ceschi on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
Life doesn’t always
make the least bit of sense.
Sometimes you can predict
how your efforts will go,
sometimes you’re surprised
by an unexpected word or
gesture or look and
your whole world turns
on a fidget spinner before
coming to rest in a place that looks
both like and unlike where
you were standing moments ago,
a place that is the same but
brighter
clearer
lovelier
The hole fills up
the clouds burn away
the sea calms
You never know
when it will get better;
you may as well stick around
for when it does
This is how
you keep holding on.
This is an excerpt from the book of poetry, this is how you live, available in both ebook and paperback form.
(Photo by Cherry Laithang on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
you stare at the blank page
the words are
gone
vanished
nonexistent
you don’t even have
a desire to write
and you’ve never not had
a desire to write
you take every moment
you can to write
now you have a moment and
you can’t write
this is how
you know it will be bad
This is an excerpt from the book of poetry, this is how you live, available in both ebook and paperback form.
(Photo by Peter Lewicki on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
you see her
at the monthly meeting
she’s wasting away
but instead of feeling alarmed
you feel jealous
you would like that wasting-away body
instead of this
large and disappointing one
so you make your plan
steel your courage
take a breath as though it can
sustain you through the starving
and you pass on
supper
this is how
you let anorexia reclaim you
This is an excerpt from the book of poetry, this is how you live, available in both ebook and paperback form.
(Photo by Joshua Newton on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
It bobs on water,
far beyond the realm
of imagination and yet
we see it when our eyes
flutter closed.
This ship.
It is well traveled,
well worn, perhaps,
having been tossed
amidst the stormy waters.
It is strong and quick,
slicing through calm,
carrying the hope of
every man who has
looked on it from a distance.
There they stand,
on a crowded shore,
and this ship, with its
knobby masts and
its pitching deck and
its ghost crew worn out
from the imaginary journey,
creeps closer and yet
not close enough to know
that the promises standing on deck
are nothing more than mist.
Perhaps it will get better,
perhaps it will come easier,
perhaps there are riches at the
end of the rainbow after all,
but this is not a ship
that will ever come in
and moving toward its sails
will not change its trajectory.
And so, what this ship tells us,
what it is speaking on the wind
that smacks its canvas across wood,
is do for yourselves
what a ship could never
do for you.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash)
by Rachel Toalson | Poetry
The day I lost my job,
the sun did not hide its face
but scorched my cheeks
in rolling waves of fire,
but the day my boyfriend
asked me to spend forever
by his side, the streets were
glistening with water that
dropped in sheets from the sky.
It poured on my wedding day,
but the day my beloved grandmother died
and the whole world moved on
with a giant hole in it,
not a cloud stood
in the winter sky.
The sun beamed as though
this day were full of joy.
It wasn’t.
The night my first son
slid into the world,
the sky held no stars,
only a heavy black sky,
ominous and uneasy,
but the night my daughter died
was a diamond one,
glittery and full.
So, you see, the weather
never quite
gets it right.
This is an excerpt from Textbook of an Ordinary Life: poems. For more of Rachel’s poems, visit her Reader Library page, where you can get a few volumes for free.
(Photo by Nicole Wilcox on Unsplash)
