Poem 287 – I want to tell you

I want to tell you

I want to tell you, it’s gonna be okay. I know you need to hear these words. I know you don’t believe them, most of the time. I know you let them fall to your feet into a puddle of muddy weather leftovers you avoid. Did you know you used to love muddy puddles? Jumping in them. Stomping in them. Diving your fingers into them, your nails like summer cottages for dirt.
Two days ago when I was driving, I saw a little boy. He was maybe two, and he plopped right down in a muddy puddle – yellow rain boots gleaming, smile bigger than the galaxy, shrieks of joy climbing in my car window. He was more than okay. Just like you can be. Childhood isn’t a phase, it’s a choice…a place to roll in, a muddy puddle to get dirty in again and again…a park to crawl or stroll into filled with memory lanes. I know these words are difficult to receive when they’re made of water and you’re covered in waterproofing. But I’m saying them anyway. I know you need to hear them. I want to tell you, it’s gonna be okay.

This poem was inspired by an ‘entry line’ in the book, The True Secret of Writing by Natalie Goldberg. This morning, in the dark before the sun slipped her shoulders over the horizon, we writers gathered on zoom and wrote together. We wrote in response to four different prompts. ‘Write using this line: I want to tell you’ was the prompt I used for today’s poem. If you’d like to join us next Thursday morning, stay tuned for the Zoom link that will be posted here next week. I post the link on Wednesdays. This is called Yin Writing, and we write from 6am – 6:30am!