We come into this world not knowing what to expect. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s good, but life and living are always a struggle, with few rewards.

Impact by RedCat

If parental love and support always lacked 

If abuse and neglect was an everyday fact 
A child’s mind and soul is under attack 

Natural behavior patterns are reprogrammed and hacked 
All so the abuser can life force extract 

A new life’s love and joy ransacked 
Growing up learning love is a transactional act 

Darkness no sunlight can counteract  
A planet busters impact 

No child can survive intact 

Do Not Tell by VJ Knutson

No one told me, 
in my haste to grow up, 
that adulthood, awash 
with responsibility, 
would also be lonely 

And, no one told me 
that the days and nights 
of sweating over lessons 
would likely not lead 
to the life imagined 

nor that commitment – 
the kind portrayed in movies – 
does not exist – the word itself 
bearing more substance 
than the act, fickle as it is 

No one told me that 
motherhood would change 
my reality permanently, 
colouring it with unfathomable 
pain and joy – such juxtaposition 

And, no one told me that 
every battle I ever arm myself for, 
regardless of its justification, 
is really a struggle with self – 
inner demons the most menacing. 

I never imagined that age, 
with seismic force, 
would alter my perspective so – 
leave me barren and yet enriched, 
enthralled with the ordinary 
and unfazed by the rest 

And, in the end, as I watch 
the vernal rains announce renewal, 
in the quiet of my solitude, I am 
amazed and grateful for all 
that this crazy, driven life has become 
and that no one ever told me. 

*This is an edited version of a poem published in April, 2019.