Every month when I review my haikus from the previous few weeks, I think “there’s no way I can post that! It’s too X.” Fill in the blank: too personal, too sad, too obscure, too depressing, too much. So, I go through them and edit and delete a few that don’t seem ready yet for the world at large. I’ve done some of that this morning with this group. But, I’ve also been listening to Sara Bareilles’ song Brave.

What would happen if we all let the words fall out honestly? This song also inspired one of my haikus which came to me as I was studying on the deck last month, enjoying the sunshine and reading about gender roles (there’s a rabbit hole that will require an entire series of blog posts).

I am embracing Brave–here are my words, as they fell out of me these past few weeks:

I gifted you with
A river of words. Language
In which we might drown.

Follow this tattered
Thread. My worn out and used up
Words. Can we mend us?

In this race against
Time, no judge, no jury. Just
The clock. Tick tock tick.

You read me like a
Favorite book, turned each page,
And savored my words.

We created some
Thing we wasted–it became
Some nothing again

Daddy’s little girl
Drops the old man’s hand and her
Heart turns into stone

Fighter jets and blue
Herons vying for sky space
Competing contrails

We each have our own
Calvary–those hilltops where
Our innocence dies

We had something and
Now we have nothing–what dark
Magic did we weave?

Sadness envelops
Me, an uncomfortable
Cocoon. A tight frame.

Hope is riding shot
Gun–we’re mapless and lost in
Uncharted terrain

Race. Class. Gender roles.
We are bound by smaller minds–
Too tiny, too tight

How big is your brave?
Could you be homo, bi, trans?
Are you strong enough?