CXCVII

I don't even know 

How to begin

To explain all the ways

That the world is not the way 

I thought it was

[Image: Marta Gawron for ELLE Croatia]

CLXVI

You have softened my body. You have softened my soul. Now you're hard up against it - the world, your own fear, all of it - and I'm losing you. 

[Image: Gemma Ward for Wonderland Magazine]

CXLI

I listen to see if hope is still there. In my heart, in my mind, in my mind's eye. In my soul. I listen because hope comes like a whisper, most times, and you must quiet yourself to hear it. So I quiet. I breathe slow. I pause and do not exhale. Until I hear it. The still small voice. The flutter in my chest - not the physical sensation, the sound of it. Soft as a feather, light as the lightest touch, warm like the winter sun through once-frosted glass. Strong in the way that spiderwebs are strong. True as the needle of a compass pointing North. I hear it all, most days, but today I need to strain to listen.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Hope comes in the morning. And every morning she sings to me, from the depths of my own soul. Softly, sweetly, she sings to me. And even if the day is bleak, and the night was long, when I hear my soul sing to me, I know one of these days He'll come home.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Hope comes in the morning.
Softly, sweetly.
Hear my soul sing.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.




[Image: ELLE Denmark]

CXXXIX

31/8: How do I feel? I feel like the world is caving in. On the 15cm squared of chest above where my heart should be. I don't know that it's there, I can't feel it for the weight of the world caving in upon it. 

[Artwork: Untitled, Ellsworth Kelly]