Cultivating

the stress and heartache,
one thing after another in a combination of knock-out punches,
had nearly broken them,
yet here they were

it was a familiar place,
this raw place of survival,
one they’d been to before in their years together –
it is inevitable if you spend enough time building a life together

it was a place of choice;
a place where you can choose to hide or choose to be,
a place of past, present, and future at once,
where, if you’re ready, you offer up pieces of yourself with abandon,
in both fear and freedom,
where you grasp for humility and strength,
where, when you do,
you break free to someplace other,
a place only achieved when you’ve dug and excavated,
when you’ve both buried that which is no longer useful and unearthed something new,
something more

yet, that newness has roots that have burrowed so deeply in fertile soil,
it’s destined to reach for the sun
and weather the most viscous storms

she knew love is a conscious choice,
that it is cultivated and it’s hard work –
she never expected white horses,
nor did she need them,
but she could never have predicted the depth of the heartache and what it required of her soul

what she did know was that she was grateful to be here with him,
heart aching,
soul-searching,
burying and unearthing,
laying roots;
cultivating

reaching for the sun

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