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A post shared by Elephant Journal (@elephantjournal) on Feb 16, 2019 at 5:00pm PST

You could be so much

Bigger than you are now,

He says.

Those words burrow

Under my skin

And into my heart:

Feeding the never satisfied, ever restless

Hungry bear in me,

Getting a taste for other people’s leftovers

Until she forgets to want anything else.

Those words make me question

Everything

Reject, resent

The petty familiarity of my

Everyday

Until my skin feels

Too tight, too…

Small

Tedious

Mundane.

Crouching

On the hard, cold bathroom floor at at 6 p.m.

Again

To scrub the dirt from underneath

Tiny toenails

Again

Listen to stories of microcosmic

Schoolground struggles

Again.

Mending the tiny cracks in small hearts

With my meager words, and my

Modest comforts,

Making the chaos and tragedy of existence

Smaller, more manageable

Breaking it down into neat, bite-sized squares of

Perfectly toasted reality

Easy to swallow…

Unlike my smallness,

My settling for

Less than what I might be.

Because

I am too

Afraid?

Safe?

Weighed down by a thousand

Routine expectations?

Intimidated by the possibilities

of my own heart?

But then,

A small hand rubs the folds of

My neck in the dark and whispers

“I love you, mommy”

And the tight skin around my shoulders relaxes

A little

And my heart remembers…

You are already a Force of Nature

And though you are not the storm

Now

But the steady, cool breeze

You are still so much

Bigger than you appear to be

Now

And you don’t need to roar

Always—

There is power in the quiet

Listening, and watching

The horizon.