Blue Heart

I've never submitted my poetry or let anyone read it. I've always written for myself, to release the sadness of the moment or express the joy I'm bubbling over with. Today I was scrolling Facebook and I saw the entry ad for a haiku and I thought, why not? What do I have to lose?

I sat down amidst the noise of my home. My toddler was running around even as Peppa Pig snorted in the background. My teenager clung nearby waiting for the eighty dollars he wanted for a project. In my ear, my hubby asking quietly, what do you want for dinner.

Are you kidding me? It's already ten o'clock on a Friday night. What kind of a mom hasn't already fed her children? Then I remember the cookies I baked hours ago to be served with a glass of milk and then an hour later the croissants I baked when my toddler tugged on my had to drag me to the kitchen. Thirty minutes ago I saw them all munching. I look up with my pen in hand just long enough to say, "They've had two snacks since four o'clock, it's okay if I take five minutes to write a haiku for this contest I saw."

My family knows me. They can see when I'm stretched so tight that the nylon of my boundaries are near breaking. With a deep sigh of regret for the harshness in my tone, I rose, setting my pen aside as I prepared dinner. The moment we sat at the table, I lifted the turkey sandwich to my lips with one hand, while in the other I clasped my pen again. My teenager asked what we were drinking even as he held his plate piled high with salad and a sandwich. I must have looked as irritated as I felt, as he stopped mid-sentence and said quietly, "Never mind, I'll get something. Anybody else want some water while I'm at it?

Satisfied that the momentary disasters of parenthood might finally be taking a break I shoved a potato chip in my mouth and began to write, to formulate the energy of what I was feeling into 17 little syllables called a haiku. I've never written a haiku so I enjoyed the challenge of saying all that I felt in those fifteen words.

Ten minutes later I looked up and smiled around the table at my family. For just as it always does, my writing took the pain and frustration of the moment and put it into words that I could then release. I set down my pen and talked to my kids and gave them each a hug goodnight knowing that it was going to take the rest of my night to finally submit my haiku. If I got it done in time. Such is the life of a mother, such is the life of a poet, such is the life of the artist.

To all of you out there putting your words and hearts down on paper, the good, the bad, the happy, the sad, I salute you. The world needs writers, artists, and poet's to keep hope alive. What you do makes all the difference.Words matter. Reading opens us all up to the potentials that life has to offer. Words give us hope, they give us love, and most important of all, words give me peace. If you have something to say please keep writing. Someday, somehow, someone will be touched. As am I.

Without further adiou,

Blue Hearts

Blue skies, blue my sight,

Blue as winter's frigid night,

Still I live to fight.