Inner & Outer Spaces

& S P A C E S A WCC Poetry Club/Bailey Library Anthology Edited Kathrine Snow & Tom Zimmerman

∞∞∞ Acknowledgments ∞∞∞ This Inner & Outer Spaces anthology, featuring work by WCC students, faculty, staff, and alumni, is a production of the WCC Poetry Club and the Bailey Library, at Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, MI. Book design by Tom Zimmerman.

Copyright © 2019 the individual authors and artists.

The works herein have been chosen for their literary and artistic merit and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Washtenaw Community College, its Board of Trustees, its administration, or its faculty, staff, or students. wccpoetryclub.wordpress.com www.wccnet.edu/resources/library/welcome/

Inner & Outer ∞∞∞ S P A C E S ∞∞∞ A WCC Poetry Club Anthology Edited by Kathrine Snow & Tom Zimmerman Contents—Words Ron Pagereski Lilly Kujawski Monica Cialek Maryam Barrie Aristea Fulcher Emy Deshotel Amy Higgins Tom Zimmerman Diane M. Laboda Kayla Price Wanda Sanders Anonymous Kadia Cohen-Patterson Sean Ogden

Silent witness Jolene: In and out of love red Summer Algebra 1 Shared Ancestry The bridge Blank Spaces Wake-up Call Windfall Conjugal Space(s) White Space Opening After-ringing, Like a Bell Happiness Y still matters if you’re solving for X. My Inner Voice Self Discovery Surrender (NSFW) Rescued From The Dark Outside An Offered Hand

4 4 5 7 8 9 11 12 14 17 18 20 22 23 26 27 29 30 32 34 36 38

Contents—Images All collage images created by Writing Center staff members Faizan Akheel, Abdur-Raheem Al-Hallak, Elise Ambriz, Sydney Mae Bumpus, Trinity Campbell, Sabrina Martell, Nina Nguyen, Wrena Sproat, and Tom Zimmerman.

Drawings on pages 25 and 31 by Writing Center staff member Emilee Seghi.

∞3∞

∞∞∞ Ron Pagereski ∞∞∞ Silent witness What have you seen, tall oak? Your years betray a sadness in your bark.

Firmly rooted in your place on the land, you stand tall and majestic. Small boys have crawled upon your frame, lovers whispered vows beneath your shade.

All have grown old and passed along, and still you stand to welcome more. Kings and peasants come and go, but you stand strong and silent in the wind. You keep the secrets of history's shadows, waiting for more.

Jolene: In and out of her love I sat unnoticed in a dimly lit corner of the coffee shop. I saw her come in, she was alone. My first instinct was to rush up to her. But no. She had discarded me like a worn out shoe. I could not tell her of the love I still had for her. The endless nights of not being able to shake her from my mind. The dreams I had of her, always her.

Dreams that dissipated like smoke from a dying fire, the fire that had died in her.

Thinking of the years I had spent alone, caring for no one. And then her. My frozen heart melted in an instant. What a fool I was, to fall so hard again. I had promised myself I would not. I remain in my obscure corner. Like a spider, deep in the funnel of its web, seeing a lovely prey, but not wanting to get squashed again.

∞4∞

∞∞∞ Lilly Kujawski ∞∞∞ Red i’m driving to a restaurant for a date with a man who doesn’t yet know it’s a date & all I can think of is you my body, cloaked in red wool shawl & everything else is red, too: fingertips bloody from anxiety, rouge lips, and the ripe crimson hurt i gave you taylor swift through my speakers as she begs, this is the last time i cry along with her my own voice cracking from the cigarette i’m smoking (marlboro red) & still, it’s so beautiful & for the first time i’m alone this is the last time, i won’t hurt you anymore i sob into the music my voice splinters rough it’s the best thing i’ve heard today ∞5∞

as i sit at this red light i bleed into it into this world of heartbreak and harmony & what it is to leave someone you still love, while not really leaving at all an ambulance glares red in the distance in front of me i keep driving, singing into the flashing, the red, the searing red, i’m not afraid.

∞6∞

∞∞∞ Lilly Kujawski ∞∞∞ Summer there’s something so summer about going to sleep at 5am, high & happy listening to birds sing outside my open window after 4 straight hours of watching catfish; the wrong side of the comforter flirting with my overgrown pubic hair my love to my left, & i swear, this moment is lucky i’m lucky just to be here when there is still morning & birds, lovers, dumb tv & scratchy blankets & me, breathing— alive.

∞7∞

∞∞∞ Monica Cialek ∞∞∞ Algebra 1 I can see the man in the boy Almost.

He struggles.

He lives his life in free verse But in my Algebra 1 class He struggles.

He flows, performs, Narrative conscious poetry, life.

His mom asks that we teachers call him Richard.

He calls himself Darius.

He struggles With the confines of Algebra.

Its properties and interlocking logic.

He does not want to search for like terms to combine.

He has no interest in the order of operations.

He wants to use his own rules to discover the mystery x is hiding.

I struggle to make him understand Algebra As he struggles to make me understand him.

I see the man he will soon become.

I see the Griot.

∞8∞

∞∞∞ Maryam Barrie ∞∞∞ Shared Ancestry A woman at work whose parents grew up in the far north of India wears the archetypal kohl eyeliner that I think I may begin to wear, ethnic underpinning for some new version of myself. Her children are all young, she is young, and her hair is dark with few scattered strands of silver, unlike mine, more silver than black at this point, and now slightly green with the henna I did with my daughter, the American.

I have been American my whole life, but with one foot in the mountains, in a rough and violent land, without the words to say more than stan after the prefix. Could I call our oak and hickory acres woodstan? Or say I grew up in Michiganistan?

I once memorized how to write my name in Pashto, but do not have it now, anymore than I have the man who grew up outside Kabul, flew to this country, the man I’ve not seen for 28 years.

He sent nothing but bitter words to my mother as he tried to harass her into letting him take his son.

A woman who has trouble saying anything for herself said no. And I eventually said no too.

I heard him say a one-way street of respect and obedience, and thought, but I am American.

I get asked at work, what are you? And then I am not.

There is only history between us, memories that can’t be set safely to the side, they are wired into the bones, into the interstices of the joints, and they are what ache now, arthritis kin to those early wounds, the ones he must tell himself he could not help.

∞9∞

I could not help it either.

I tried to be his daughter, invited him to the wedding, heard him say that since he hadn’t selected the groom he would not attend.

I’m left to my own reckoning, but still feel a deep pull to the violet mountains I’ll never see, the royal blue of lapis lazuli, that far off loud and relentless wind, the destroyed Buddhas of Bahmiyan, and like them, there is nothing left to see here, nothing at all.

∞ 10 ∞

∞∞∞ Aristea

Fulcher ∞∞∞

The bridge Do I hate myself vicariously through you, Or the other way around?

I have your eyes And the road is blurry and I’ve taken to driving in circles to feign the feeling of productivity Let me borrow your car?

When I was younger I spent ten minutes staring at a candle wick trying to will it on fire Do I miss you or just not feeling bad every time I hear your name?

It was a luxury I didn’t know I had taken for granted I’ve taken to reading the newspaper to feign morality (My reaction is enough to make a change) Somewhere far away a fire I would never learn about broke out.

It had nothing to do with me.

∞ 11 ∞

∞∞∞ Emy

Deshotel ∞∞∞

Blank Spaces as sleep deprivation takes hold the world deconstructs around me breaking down into primary colors and tiny parts labeled "choking hazard. keep out of reach of children" when I was a child i slept as an adult i drift and chase after dreams instead of being immersed in them

∞ 12 ∞

∞ 13 ∞

∞∞∞ Amy Higgins ∞∞∞

Wake-up Call 3 AM in the frigid heart of February, and someone was banging on our front door—frantic, yelling, “Help, Help, someone, please!”

Jolted from sleep, I ran to answer it, but stopped at the top of the stairs. My husband was traveling—only my son Sean and I were home. Who knocks on the door at 3 AM? Sean, seventeen, came out of his room. “What the hell?”

More feverish banging. A desperate voice, “My truck’s on fire!”

That did it. “Stay here,” I said.

I opened the door to a young man who rocked back and forth, his naked arms gesturing helplessly at a black truck parked across the street. He wore a dirty blue tee shirt and jeans in the subzero weather. Sure enough, flames lit the inside of the truck’s cab.

Holding his pink, clean-shaved head in his hands like he was in pain, he moaned, “Oh God, Oh God, Oh God!” I ran and grabbed our fire extinguisher from the kitchen; before I could ask if he knew how to use it, he took it and ran back to the truck.

He didn’t know how to use it. He was circling the truck, futilely waving the extinguisher and cursing. Next to the flames that now leaped high above the truck’s cab, a device made for putting out grease fires was tiny, absurd. As fire swallowed the truck’s hood, three loud pops made him jump back.

“It’s too dangerous, come inside!”

My son was at my shoulder now watching, stunned. “What do we do?”

“Call 911. Tell them there’s a truck on fire in front of our house.

I’m afraid it might explode.” As Sean got his phone and made the call, the contrast hit me—I marveled at my low-key boy.

My warnings finally penetrated, and the stranger ran inside cradling his hand, “I burned my hand, Jesus, Jesus!”

“We already called 911. They’re sending a fire truck over,” I took him to the sink and ran cold water over his burned hand and wrapped it with blue picnic ice packs from the freezer. ∞ 14 ∞

He looked through me with glassy eyes that were all pupil. He moved like a caged animal between our kitchen and front door, muttering incoherently.

“Who can I call for you?” I tried to make eye contact.

“Shit, shit, my phone’s in the truck!” He lunged toward the front door as if to run back out after it, “I need to call my brother!”

I calmly asked him for the number, and he stood stunned and blank, then recited a number. Hearing the ring, I handed him my phone.

His brother wasn’t answering. He started to pace again, “Pick up, pick up, pick up!”

That’s when it hit me—he was high. He had parked across from our house to cook and inject—crack? heroin?—into his raw, scabbed arm.

Emotional whiplash took my breath. My feelings flipped—from pity for this kid not much older than my son—to a toxic mixture of hurt and fury at this reckless, selfish addict who had broken into our sleep and inflicted his chaos on us. Like Mom. By now, his brother had picked up, and the guy was pleading with him, “You have to come get me. I swear it’s the truth . . . my truck is on fire . . . . I’m not lying. Why don’t you believe me? Don’t hang up, don’t hang up!” His brother hung up.

He tried his parents. They didn’t answer.

I took my phone back. The three of us stood at the front window and watched the truck burn. The flames cast shadows on my neighbor’s white garage. The front tires burned, bright circles of flame.

Lights flashing, but strangely silent, the fire truck pulled up.

Two heavily suited firefighters with shiny, industrial-size fire extinguishers put the fire out in thirty seconds. I let them in, and they questioned the guy about the fire.

“It was an accident, I swear! I used my lighter to find my phone, and the seats caught fire . . .”

The firefighter in charge caught my eye and held it. He knew.

“Let’s go outside now and let these folks get back to bed, okay?”

The fireman thanked me and apologized, as if he had been the cause ∞ 15 ∞

of the disturbance. As he led him out the door and over to the ambulance that had just arrived, the kid protested, “No, No, my brother’s coming—he’s gonna be here. Don’t take me to the hospital!”

No fan of drama, Sean shook his head. Wordless, he hugged me and went back up to bed.

I returned the fully charged fire extinguisher to its spot in the kitchen. As I lay in bed a few minutes later, I wondered if the guy was still outside or if they had taken him to the E.R. I thought about taking a coat out to him. I didn’t.

∞ 16 ∞

∞∞∞ Amy

Higgins ∞∞∞

Windfall I have learned which fallen apples are best— bruises don’t matter or black spots what matters is the weight, the feel under my thumb that this golden skin wants to burst.

The perfect fruit may squirt you in the eye as you bite, it might fizz a bit like a warm can of pop.

Years back, before I began this autumn rite of the apple crisp—my neighbor, whose apples these are, makes from them, inexplicably, a sticky leather— my girl and I collected every one, bag upon bag of damp, buggy fruit for the discarded potbellied pigs at the animal rescue miles away.

This field trip was a frolic for six Girl Scouts and me.

The only hint that the bristly creatures were once cute was their sweet, circular, naked snouts emitting snorts better than your best armpit fart.

As the pigs waddled up and munched and munched without pause for breath, how we laughed, as their corkscrew tails spun.

∞ 17 ∞

∞∞∞ Tom Zimmerman ∞∞∞

Conjugal Space(s) 1 —it isn’t far from ear to ear / yet everything that you can see / Loch Ness / Grand Tetons / or Manhattan skyline / fits inside your head // Orion strides above the arborvitae / saw it with the dog out back // and now you’re sitting on the couch / a second beer half gone / your wife intently doing something on her phone // the space between you / feet or universes // likely worlds curved weirdly and overlapping / ghosts commingling in the drift // the secret to a happy marriage / “keep your mouth shut” // Hamlet says / “let be” // the wisdom of the elders / ancient eyes your stars // or did you see this on TV /// 2 —you’re under house arrest / the dog still sick / your wife gone to Chicago / will she even come back home // the breeze high in the trees / you hear it sighing / throws the sunshine straight down through the skylight / dappled waves // “I’m under God’s own microscope” / you’d say if you believed // ∞ 18 ∞

but this and you are something grainier / daguerreotype / kinetoscope / dark matter everywhere to contemplate // you texted back and forth last night // buck up // she wrote she loves you // don’t you know it’s why you’re playing Mahler / channeling Prince Hamlet now // hope’s music overripe / space-time’s collapse “a consummation devoutly to be wished” /// 3 —amygdalae and synapses / you break the music of the spheres with rack and thumbscrew idiolect // sounds fresh / better than tennis without a net // your wife reminds you though / the sun / the nothing new that’s ever under it // she’s right // the Eiffel Tower / Bay of Fundy / Colosseum / Parthenon / the Western world you’ve seen in bits and bobs // you try to haul it in / to shore these fragments up against your ruins // it’s heroic // and absurd // some music makes you want to cry / you won’t / but that’s another poem // right now it’s Brian Eno on the playlist / (re)shaping ambiances you should share /// ∞ 19 ∞

∞∞∞ Diane

M. Laboda

∞∞∞

White Space Consider the white space between words on a page, and the glowing borders around them.

Consider the space between thoughts, the pause between breaths, the free-flowing air between you and me.

Are these spaces empty, waiting to be filled with my words, your songs, waiting to be filled with your arms and reaching?

Consider the space between synapses, the space between cells, the curious pathways that carry memory and learning and love.

Consider the space that fills up with joy and praise, or the space that fills with heartache and longing.

Are these spaces ones we seek or ones we avoid, ones that hold treasures or troubles, holes in the universe of us, or conduits holding our life force?

Do we use these spaces as byways between us, or avenues away? Do we treat them like backstreets, alleyways connecting humanity or channels where we explore beyond?

Consider spaces which have more volume than what they’re between.

Are they nothing or are they more? ∞ 20 ∞

Are they where grief or gratitude reside?

Are they questions or are they truth?

Are they solace, are they home?

∞ 21 ∞

∞∞∞ Diane

M. Laboda ∞∞∞

Opening Now that the snow is long gone and we’ve witnessed mother nature blooming, greening, bursting out of her winter trappings, we sigh.

We creep out of our cocoons, go boldly into the world unclothed, feeling the air electric on our skin, inviting in tulip breath, peony puff and daffodil trumpets.

We are renewed, reinvented, asked only to breathe deeply, notice greatly, accept without judgment or expectation what nature offers us.

Our heart beats more slowly, our shoulders relax, our burden lightens and we aspire only to fly up from our loamy dens, our suffocating houses, our circular thinking into a space that’s been there for us all along—one we never noticed, never listened for, never entered, never embraced.

It only takes an opening, a single breath to connect us to a story that’s been there all along—never out of reach, only out of sight, out of heart.

∞ 22 ∞

∞∞∞ Diane

M. Laboda ∞∞∞

After-ringing, Like a Bell Our story lives in our imagination as it is embodied in our life.

Trees sway, flowers bloom, water rushes by in streams. These we notice and observe.

We fill in gaps with our imagination, make puzzle pieces fit—birdsong, peeper-peeps, a rush of wind, a thunder clap—all fill out our plot, feather our nest.

We imagine our way into who we want to be. We fill in the space between lines, create our way into what’s not in our family photos.

All of this is part of our story, as real as a bird’s trilled songs, the peepers’ call in spring, chimes in the wind, lightning before rain.

Those who listen reach for the nuance of the imagined self and try to hold on to the kite’s tail, go deeper, reach higher, love more as the horizon blurs.

∞ 23 ∞

We fill our story with joy and sorrow, we learn our path as we go, we walk right up to the silence of the last scene, and stand back to capture the echo of our grace.

∞ 24 ∞

∞ 25 ∞

∞∞∞ Kayla

Price

Happiness Suzy stopped to smell the flowers Bloom, just as her posture did She petals forward Lifting her chin To witness the sun rise Solar honey bursting from the horizon lid A new day The trees are sappy Happiness is due —for Suzy

∞ 26 ∞

∞∞∞

∞∞∞ Kayla

Price

∞∞∞

Y still matters if you’re solving for X. I wonder if I may be overcompensating with self inquiry.

Draining myself; straining to see my inner methodology.

Timid threads can remain intact if tugged at from an arm’s length.

Distance and passivity add up to conflict kept at bay.

To endure the test of time; it requires strength.

“I’m sorry” can suffice; “I believe you” will do just fine.

“I love you” at the end of the day.

Is there a ‘right’ way to grow out of isolation?

I’m reassessing my expectations.

Baggage remains unpacked, it can’t be unzipped with gratification.

What is it about appearance? My perspective sustains signal interference.

Recovering from people-pleasing is like easter egg hunting in multiple planes of existence.

I think I forgot what it meant to have a basket.

I was too distracted by shells and facets.

How much patience does it take to re-center and grow up?

Apologetic about my low capacity for casual interactions.

I see the fractalized telecommunications, the topology of intentions.

Authenticity is lost in transit, Purpose is misplaced in translation.

Social cues blues, never mind all the fractions.

Define casual. Define ‘normal’. Define ‘social circle’.

Define ‘the butt of the joke’, ‘dupe’.

Define ‘being in a room full of people and still feeling alone’.

Challenging myself to not care was likely a mistake. Self-love deficiency questions compartmentalizing ‘friends’ from ‘lovers’. ∞ 27 ∞

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

∞ 28 ∞

∞∞∞ Wanda

Sanders ∞∞∞

My Inner Voice In the wind I hear my inner voice—an echo of my swirling emotions.

Memories at first like soft whispers begin to collide with tsunami force.

I think of you and my soul is a tarantella. I cannot stop. My heart is in turmoil.

I dare not open my mouth to speak for fear I could not control the screams. The words catch in my throat. I remember the music that was your voice and my ears burn with longing. Why did fate take you away?

Days and nights blur together. Minutes and hours blend. The passage of time a never-ending cycle. My time with you was much too brief.

The moments we shared only a twinkle of an eye—not like the constant light that was in yours.

Every part of me will always desire every part of you. The essence of my inner voice forever connected with your spirit.

∞ 29 ∞

l

∞∞∞ Wanda

Sanders ∞∞∞

Self Discovery The past two years have been more than a significant chapter in my life—a story of such lows and highs that I could not tell you all the details and you not believe that I was embellishing more than telling the truth.

I’ve learned so much about life, my own inner voice, that I did not know myself. Learning to know myself is probably the greatest journey of discovery I could make. Where before I walked in certain delusions about who I am, about what my reactions would be to specific stimuli, now I see where I had placed my imaginary perceptions in a tidy little box, blind to my sins and faults on one hand and blind to my virtues on the other.

The journey continues. My box has lost its sides—open to the deepest valleys and highest mountains, down to the deepest oceans and up to the farthest reaches of space. Only my thinking creates the limits of what’s possible.

I am in a barrier free dimension now that my brain can see, hear, feel the sun. My misperceptions are being corrected by this thing called life. My legs, my wings, my gills are but a stepping stone, a gust of wind, a wave of water—and I am a soul set free.

∞ 30 ∞

∞ 31 ∞

∞∞∞ Anonymous ∞∞∞

Surrender (NSFW) My dead broken eyes Have been through so many tries I want to be sober If not I’ll be over I sit hopeless in jail Can’t fuck my way out of bail So I sit in the psych ward And god damn I’m bored Jails, rehab, death And with my last breath I’ll ask if there’s more Fuck it, I’ll be your whore But I look in the mirror And behind all my tears There’s a sad broken girl Angry with the world And I see that same look In the fathers that took Their time to raise daughters Whose lives end in slaughter By the cold, greedy hand Of the local dope man Should I just give up?

Have I finally had enough?

I look down at my veins I could get rid of the pain

∞ 32 ∞

Or do I stand tall With nothing left at all And walk into a meeting I receive somber greetings People’s eyes all the same We played the death game All these druggies and thugs Begin to morph into hugs Do I want to belong?

Or should I move on To a bleak afterlife Rather than living in strife It’s the ultimate choice!

Then I hear a voice It begins to talk: “Fuck it, buy a rock!”

Now I’m back where I started Nothing’s changed, I’m retarded Coming back from a bender Fuck it, I’ll surrender

∞ 33 ∞

∞∞∞ Kadia

Cohen-Patterson ∞∞∞

Rescued From The Dark In the stillness of the night, When I find myself awake; I toss and turn, even pace the floor But my troubles I can not shake.

For heavily they rest in my thoughts, I have no clue of what to do; And it is seeming like forever now, With no hope of a breakthrough.

It is like a great big dome, All alone inside I am trapped, With no windows nor doors nor means of escape; No road was ever mapped.

Now on the verge of desperation, I remembered a name; That I was told if called upon, Life Would never be the same.

And so I cried, Lord remember me; Deliver me from this place, I know that you can hear me; I need your saving grace.

As if sitting right next to me, He said my child be still; For I am your God the great I am, Now let be done my will.

∞ 34 ∞

Then this peace came upon me, And I laid my head to rest; For I gave it all to Jesus, And I know he’ll do the rest.

∞ 35 ∞

∞∞∞ Sean

Ogden ∞∞∞

Outside A crowded street greets the young man as he steps out into the world. A world he dreams will be full of wonder and adventure. With unending days of joy and fulfillment. A world filled with more pain and sorrow than he could have ever imagined. A world filled with only ignorance and disregard. So many superficial people spouting foolishness as wisdom. So many people walking along blind to the truth of what drives those beside them. All these people believing their view the only basis to cast judgement upon those around them.

They do not even attempt to see the whole of the story that rests at the heart of every action. They do not see the tears in the eyes of the girl who rudely bumped their shoulder as she rushed by.

They do not feel the pain in the heart of the man who accidentally knocked a bag from one’s hands as he stumbled by without a clue.

All these people seeing the world only through their own eyes, leaving themselves blind to the actual entirety of the picture before them.

And this thought urges the young man to step outside the throng of bodies moving around him.

Here he finds the world he’d hoped to see. His joyous world struggling to light amidst a world so full of selfishness and sorrow.

Here he sees the person that reaches out for the girl who bumped them rather than curse her. Here he sees one put their arm around the man who knocked the bag from their hands, his pain etched clearly upon his face when one looks with understanding in their eyes rather than confrontation. Here he sees a world worth living in.

People see the world through the lenses of their personal experiences. It is not until one takes their self outside of their own experiences that they see the whole of a situation before them. Life is filled with judgement, there is no avoiding it, but before you pass your own remember this; the individual perception of one can take the selfish another and make it selfless just as it can show the reverse. One must learn to look from outside their own preconceptions if they are to justify the judgements they pass on ∞ 36 ∞

another. Every situation one encounters will show multiple facets with different reasons for every consequence. Learn to look at each before you pass judgement if you are to do so with any true understanding.

These people who are willing to see the world from another’s point of view make relationships worth keeping. Do not allow yourself to cast blind judgement upon those beside you, even as they do such to you. There can be no understanding while both sides refuse to open their eyes to the truth of what the other sees. Be the person who looks out at the world with understanding and care in their eyes. Be the person that sees there is still worth in a world so filled with callousness. Step outside yourself and see just how alike the people all around truly are. How alike yourself they are. Step outside and see that your understanding can bring someone from the edge of falling away forever. Help break the cycle of ignorance which holds sway over the people on this crowded path of life. Help guide them to the light you see when you step outside.

∞ 37 ∞

∞∞∞ Sean

Ogden ∞∞∞

An Offered Hand Another sigh floats by on the wind as you catch a glimpse of another that has fallen. You know all too well the obstacles that wait in hiding along this path that is life. This one rests on the cold ground, eyes locked on the sky above. The sad look in those eyes tells the tale of one who as fallen more than most. Despair and defeat are the only things that show in this forlorn gaze locked upon the stars. How many times have you found yourself in that same place. Searching again for a reason to move forward while you question the strength in your heart. Resting on the brink of falling into a dark that will hold you forever in this sham of a life you try to escape from. You know just how hard it is to push yourself to rise again. But what is there that you could do for this poor soul? How often was it that you had to force yourself to find the strength to try again? You know the truth of what you can offer this person though.

So very many times did you plead for the same thing you now find yourself able to offer. Maybe all they need this time is just a hand back to their feet and a nudge in the right direction.

You might not know it yet and they might not see it either, but somebody out there is going to need the hand you have to offer. So step up and be the one to help pull another back from the pit that may prove too deep to ever climb from. In you there is a power far greater than any other in this world. There is the power to care. Use it, for the help you have to offer, however small it may be, could prove to be the greatest salvation to come to another's life. You will never be able to walk their path for them. You cannot carry them past all the troubles they might face, but you just might be able to give them a nudge in the right direction. Help them find the strength they need to push through the pains life brings them. In this action, you just might find a little more strength waiting in yourself.

Truly, the power of an offered hand is neglected by far too many in this life today. You really do have the power to help change another's life with even the smallest bit of help you have to give. Do not hesitate to offer it. Sometimes, all a person needs to change ∞ 38 ∞

their world is one hand to help pull them back toward a little light.

Life can be a tough path to tread. It is filled with many harsh choices to make and harsher consequences to face. You cannot expect yourself to always make the right ones. So do not expect it of any others. Be willing to help another past the troubles that hold them down and you just might find them looking down at you one day, a knowing smile on their lips and an offered hand, willing to pull you up from the troubles that now hold you.

∞ 39 ∞

∞ 40 ∞

∞ 41 ∞