30 Day Poetry Challenge: Day 20: ABLE

Day 20: Able

Found on an unknown page from the Secret Travel Diary of Ashlen Hodge. This diary is page after page of falling and rising back up. Wondering, doubting, relearning, trying again. Always trying again. I'm glad this word found it's way to me. I often forget about how much I do in my life. How much I have grown and achieved.
Sunday's End Comes too Soon

Today was a long day

When you become an adult, you have those more frequently
subtling building
a lego tower of tiny shoulds
interconnecting, locking, clicking into place
so quietly building til you notice the shadow this mountain casts
across your once open, sunny day

But hey
Wasn't this autonomy something we craved
stuck behind desks and books and grey walls
Wasn't free choice a Golden Land
that we would one day achieve
once we slogged through the mundane mud of adolescene


I remember how overwhelmed I felt as a 2nd grader

watching a 6th grader do their math.
Thinking how super human my parents were to understand taxes
cooking
how changing bodies worked
broken hearts
Living

I rememember the frenzy of anger and irritation
when my hands would fail me
neglect to draw the line I imagined
glue or string or sew one thing onto another
What lived in my minds eye
would rarely match
what my inexperienced hands could create

But wait
I have been made Able by all the times I was not
I forget that
gloss over
ignore the power of my falling
failing
and as my day reaches the end of it's long slog
I wonder if I'm doing it right
am I wasting time?

That is a downward line
which is so easy to slide along
I relearn daily
that I am still growing
still discovering the better path
through the trees of my despair

And there
is the freedom
you were promised in your tossled hair and skinned knee days
That is how you build yourself, a Hero of your life
one tiny lego at a time


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