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Don’t snuff out your own bright lights
Bad enough that others will try to do that for you
Assemble your efforts to reach ever higher
Ascend those jagged rocks to pinnacled peaks
Find your own beauty and grandeur
Finesse your own sweet way in the world
Leave stifling to old reruns
Shame on anyone who would seek to undo
your sense of purpose, your sense of self.

Leave them, and go.

Daily Prompt: Stifle

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The rough edges of
how I appear to the world
require daily filings
if only the angle required
to get at it all
wasn’t so confounding.

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Your eyes grabbed hold of me
more than ten years ago.
I’ve been haunted by them
ever since.

Sitting on a bus
between classes
I noticed you
in the backseat of a car.
You were hugging the window.
How frail you looked:
lost, bewildered, afraid.

We exchanged glances
and I wondered then
(and yet still today)
if you were neglected.
Perhaps abused.
Did you feel unloved?
A ship at sea, unmoored,
tossed and battered and ungrounded:
that’s how you appeared to me.

I’ve thought of you many times
and wondered what became of you.
Has life treated you well?
Was joy a part of your days?
Have you been happy?

I hope Love called your name.

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Actinic keratosis
seems hubby was right
liquid nitrogen’s burn — and tingle
deftly applied to
persistent spots
on my face, my legs
parts of me forever exposed to the sun;
denial, years in the making.