Resilience - I

I am

defeated.

It happens. They come

and they go—

the highs

and the

lows

as natural as the waves

or the tides, or the wind;

undulations tied down by laws,

yet free: like the bird.

Photography Copyright Lavanya Acharya

I ride it, the best that I can:

curled up like a bug:

heart aching

from a beating

invisible

in-

tangible

small part self-inflicted

but wholly undeserved.

—curled up, like a bug,

each time, I reach the ocean bed,

weighed down by its thick,

heavy blanket of dark despair,

and each time, an odd instinct for survival

makes me

lift

up

my head.

Uncurled, soft underbelly exposed,

my many legs take me

writhing and grasping for life,

to open air

to danger

back to the undulations that have

once again, failed

to break me.

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Flare - verse

1. Defeat

2. Entropy

3. Reconstruction

4. Resilience

5. Still Standing

6. Coming Home

7. Effect