by terrisearstherapy | Mar 6, 2025 | Poems
Waking with an ache in my heart
Music settles me but reminds me of you
and what has been lost
What do we do now?
How do we navigate this space with our hearts broken and minds wandering?
How does anyone begin again?
Surely we are not the same and yet our hands have not changed but our voice is different
When we speak now there is a different sound, the sound of grief,
the sound of what will never be again and a shift in tone that will remain.
Let my broken voice and heart connect to you so that I have the courage to begin again.
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by terrisearstherapy | Mar 1, 2025 | Poems
Manifesting what?
Abundance, stability, support
All to help you navigate this crazy life
The push-pull between wanting and letting go
What is the magic formula?
Endless searching and studying those who’ve “made it”
How did they do it? What am I doing wrong?
Always striving and pushing forward
The secret to success is found here
I’m tired
I’m tired of following you and your way
What is my way?
What is our way?
An interconnected mess
When will this soul settle down
And finally realize this is it?
Even if it feels like not enough.
I don’t begrudge you of your intentions and goals
I only remind you and myself that with every dream, every pursuit
You must hold with it
The wanting and then it’s letting go.
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by terrisearstherapy | Feb 6, 2025 | Poems
As I turn towards this phase of my life
My heart aches with longing that is present and yet to come.
What a precarious position
As I grieve the recent loss of my mother
Deep and sharp but still bitter to the taste
And just when my heart feels kicked and torn
The immense thought of you leaving within a year crushes me.
The moment I became a mom lifted my soul to a pinnacle height
How much love can I hold in my being for one just born?
My oldest, my only son
You, strong, faithful, honest and earnest
You held my heart from the day you were born.
I fall to my knees with the grief now
How can one person bear this?
Certainly, there is greater divisive and useless suffering in the world
That I of course realize but this distinct
Pain of a motherless mother who must let go
On both sides
I’m singular now but can’t relinquish.
What has helped to define me now shifts
What I have built my life around now must change
Anyone who ever says this is good
Maybe well-intentioned, but without the understanding
That the release of a parent and a child sting to its core.
And yet, as the day comes to an end
I am reminded of acceptance, grace and now transcendence,
And most certainly gratitude.
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by terrisearstherapy | Feb 2, 2025 | Poems
We didn’t get that much time with you…
Your love of melody and melancholy
Snickers bars and getting stuck in the Black Hills snow in your Scout
All describe your inclinations…your thing, your way.
Remembering going for walks with you in the warm summer evenings
Just to look at the Moon.
Oh, blue moon looking down on us
Smiling knowing the love shared and tragedy to come
How does one ever make sense of senseless loss?
Our hearts are only so big and when there’s a hole in your heart
You have less to work with.
I’m always sewing and mending my heart.
I think your heart was just too big for this world.
It took on all emotions and couldn’t differentiate between
What to treasure and what to let go of.
It wasn’t easy for you with a father who wasn’t around much and was an alcoholic.
He set a pathway for you that you never wanted to really take.
Your pursuit of excellence
Carried you through until your woundedness overtook you.
As I’m getting closer to the age when you died,
I have questions.
Why did you feel so alone even though many loved you?
What about living this life turned you into a shell of yourself?
Why did debilitating depression have to take you from us?
No real answer to these questions will suffice because they won’t bring you back.
I saw your spirit break, after a long battle
It was exasperated.
You had to release it.
But make no mistake, those of us left behind will always wish we had more time.
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by terrisearstherapy | Jan 29, 2025 | Poems
Dual lives
One filled with striving, excelling and confidence
The other layered with fear, angst and overthinking
Keep the struggle inside.
Don’t let them see the whole of who you are
If they only knew, what would they think?
Rejection and judgment perhaps
Or quiet disengagement?
Facing your fears daily
Is riddled with mental gymnastics;
Stop thinking, no don’t stop thinking
Actually, allow the thinking
But externalize it, wait no
Just accept it as part of you and
Don’t resist it.
And then maybe it will go away
Or maybe it won’t.
Exhausting…..
Can I be like this little butterfly
With her metamorphosis and ease as she
Flutters around the sun?
She soaks up the heat
Pulling in this moment close.
Can I finally integrate all of who I am and
pull into this moment
And trust?
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by terrisearstherapy | Jan 22, 2025 | Poems
A Mother’s hands are built from bone, flesh and love.
She will hold you as an infant, gently put you on her knee.
Your first experience of pure, unconditional love.
Her swift hands hold you when you cry and wrap you up in warm blankets.
She puts you in your highchair for your first delicious bites of apple or carrots and your smile reflects back to her that you feel her love.
Her hands are so busy, out in the world…lifting, fixing, writing and expressing themselves to others.
Yet at the end of the day when she comes home to you, her hands embrace you
and remind you that you are okay and that she is with you.
Oh, how her hands move during the holiday season…gumdrop cakes, chocolate chip bread and Christmas cookies
all call upon her hands to press, push and pull.
Her hands don’t stop until the end of the day when they gently wash her own face,
brush her own teeth and finally pull the bed covers up.
Her hands are freckled and cracked but adorned with rings and jewels holding memories and adventure.
Her hands have traveled far and wide, felt traumatic loss and wiped away many tears.
Her hands so delicately tried to adjust her hair or her shawl at the end of her days.
Her hands were tired.
I will miss her hands.
The hands that held me at birth, the hands that comforted me as an infant into adulthood
and the hands that finally said “You must let go”.
In my dreams I see her hands…busy, holding, touching and forever giving.
A mother’s hands will never be forgotten.
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