Lyrical breezes swirl over a Van Gogh landscape, unsure how to define the words, “ Give him your marrow.” My frustrations were vented and flew up to the sky like a bright yellow balloon, happy and eager to be heard by the clouds. Then…..well, they popped, of course, their remains falling imperceptibly to choke the natural world. My smile must be put on a leash and dragged into work sometimes. If walls could talk, I think they’d say, “She tries to be useful, but finds her presence redundant.”

Crusted criticism flakes off me like the delicate, fragile layers of a fluffy croissant. My sugar is building snowmen, selling death door to door to the depressed and broken, offering itself a sacrifice. In a cold place, my body will be sleeping. The cliffs carouse beside the sea. I miss my husband while he rubs my back. I am cheerful, living like lightning. Burn bright, then in a flash, gone. Nothing left but a faint, sticky smoke. I do not need criticism. I need the white sacrifice of a discipline I could not understand – like it’s been 36 years and after He saves my life and seals me I still say, “No one loves me,” because unworthiness is in my blanched bones. The sunshine is, to the shadow, fearsome and hard to believe.