Contemplation

I find myself sitting here for a moment, gathering my thoughts like fragile treasures in my hands, collecting my heart as it stretches across the night sky. I carve out a sanctuary where I can discover a bit of solitude and tranquility. I inscribe my faith onto this page, creating a space for reflection.

I write a name that brings serenity to my weary mind—a name that envelops me in peace: God. This peace fortifies me against the relentless pressures of a life that sometimes feels foreign to me.

Even now, I struggle to fully understand how living with PTSD has transformed my mind. At times, I find clarity, while at other moments, simply existing feels overwhelming. Yet one truth remains clear: I have weathered storms before, and during those trials, God stood by my side. Even in uncharted territories, he is already there, waiting.

He was with me when my world felt like it was collapsing, bursting apart from within, and he remains with me now. So, I take a few more deep breaths, pondering the depth of his love for us. How can it be that he loves us so beyond measure? Yet, he does.

-Rhia Clay

Pitter-patter
Pitter-patter
I listen to the rain fall down
Pitter-patter
Pitter-patter
What a delightful sound

How many shades of gray can you count
Staring up at the rain clouds?
Would you be able to name them,
Give them a purposeful pallet in which to contrast against
Would they go well with marble or subway tile?
Could you see it defaulting a room to a “create-a-character” meh?

Could you assign them to moods?
Let each shade or shape of the clouds tell a story
Each one or color depicts a mental illness and how it cascades in the mind.
What depicts depression, is it the darkest gray or the lightest?
How would you label the spectrum?

What of the rain?
Could we categorize how it pours down?
If it’s by its sides is it sliding into indifference?
What about the dull droll of straight down,
Is that just melancholic, or simply a chance to shower outside?
Let the natural spritz renew with vigorous remiss
And chase away sorrow in cool or warm damp praise.

Whatever the case,
However, the time is spent in malaise
Remember the sun will return,
And so too will color.

Today was a sad song day
And I am alive.

I read a poem about love and tomatoes
that moved me to tears

And it’s raining now,
storming.

And I am alive.

Were I a different kind of mother,
the kind from movies,
I would wake you up so we could run outside and dance flailingly in the front yard as the neighbors peer through their slatted blinds, shaking their heads.

The storm has already slowed, though.
It always ends eventually.

The rain will bring tomatoes
and soften the grass between your tiny toes.

And I am alive.

How perfectly my aliveness fits my every me,
how much room there is in here.
If fill my aliveness to the very top, somehow it is never full,
there is always space for another swirling galaxy,
another thunderstorm
another sad song.

Tomorrow there will be tomatoes
and soft grass and tiny toes.

Today was a sad song day.
And I am alive.

Vista la Cappa porpora bruciata
dalla fiaccola del Mare uguale
e stufo della Corona che porto,
e con essa la prigionia, mi dissi:

or ora ** deciso:
lascerò alle fiere le mie stanche carni
ed alla tempesta i Lumi,
conservando avidamente
solo l'impura fiamma che strazia urlò:
"è l'ignoranza che porta al trono",


o almeno così avrei fatto se la mente
fosse timone dell'anima e il cuore
ridotto da un re assoluto ed invisibile
ad un ratto senza denti e ossa.

///

Having seen the purple Cape burned
by the torch of the equal Sea
and tired of the Crown that I wear,
and with it the captivity, I said to myself:

now I have decided:
I will leave my tired flesh to the beasts
and the Lights to the storm,
greedily preserving
only the impure flame that tears he shouted:
"it is ignorance that leads to the throne",

or at least I would have done so if the mind
were the rudder of the soul and the heart
reduced by an absolute and invisible king
to a rat without teeth and bones.