Freedom

Freedom comes with keys in hand

to unbound every lock

With wings she flies

and clips the ties that bind

Loose! Loose!

With open arms she wanders to, and fro,

seeking the desperate and distraught,

Turning water into wine,

Turning water into wine.

-j. a. hongo, 2023

The Saying of It

Hard conversations are worth having if you value the people and relationships you have. It takes a huge amount of vulnerability to open up and share one's struggles in the hopes of making things better. Because you never know. You never know how your words will be received, you never know how the conversation will go, if it will end up sideways or upside down or if at the end of it, you will have a relationship at all.

But if you've been in any long term relationship, you know that these conversations are necessary and life-giving in the end. Even if the relationship falls apart, even if your words seem to fall on deaf ears--even if--the saying of it all is needed for the sayer to say and the hearer to hear and both will be changed because of the saying if it. In time, the edges will smooth out and things will unfold as they should, choices, relationships, and paths will all lead where they will.

Not that it's easy. Noooooooo! But it is brave. And with truth and kindness it is worth the risk because being real in this life is part of really living. So onward! The best is yet to be <3

On that Day

One day the weeping will cease

and your body,

so tired from heaving sobs,

will release itself

and rest will finally come to your bones

You will close your eyes and smile,

and the air will be sweet

and the blue sky will dance upon your skin

while shafts of sunlight flicker down on you

And you will forget this gravelly grief,

you will be able to lay aside down your mourning

as lightly as a silk nightgown

floating away in the breeze

And happiness will enter you again,

coming through the holes of your wounds,

permeating your marrow with joy,

with love,

with peace and stillness

and all will be well,

and even the black dog of depression

will lay at your feet, obedient to you

on that day.