Author: Elizabeth Maynard

Tonight snapped and cracked
bright fingers reached across the sky

I, mesmerized
set down the work in my lap
lay back and curled myself
around my child

Every day remember:
listen for that low rumble
pause
and live this life

Look, I want to love this world as though it’s the last chance I’m ever going to get to be alive and know it.

Mary Oliver

I 
want to want
to imagine what it could be to
love and be loved by you in
this little life, in this tiny
world

When we were younger
we looked through telescopes
held hands at the planetarium
delighted in smoothing out
the folds of crisp star maps
and gazed long at the night sky

Now I gaze at you
folds at eyes and lips
smoothing into indefinite future
hands held in unfamiliar spaces
looking through progressive lenses
gently tracing the scars mapped
upon our skin

I made myself small
to leave room for you

Quiet
for the sound of your voice

Still
for your movements

Invisible
to us both

When the rains come
to wash the world clean
every sin forgiven
every error mended
you need only stand
amazed and willing
to be made new

Some days are heavier than others
tender and easily bruised

Some days I don't know the words
in any tongue

to grieve a life brief or painful
a relationship unmended
wishes and expectations
unfulfilled

Some days I may only assent
to the workings of this world

At the end of yourself
pause and peer over the edge
thunderstruck

Though it may not feel this way
there must be more working
for you to be here today

You, in all your simplicity
and complexity
are miracle

I'm not a member of the 
mile high club

That would require gymnastics
I now feel too old to try

So when I say 
I don't give a flying fuck

Know it's time to either
take off out of my way

Or buckle up and
give this hope wings

the last in a 3-piece F*ck challenge with other writers