There is a jukebox in the corner
Where saddle shoes used to tread
Under skirts and socks with lace
Splattered with drippings from
Chocolate malts and shakes,
Where pearls would bounce
And roll across the floor.
Tile black and white—
I know it sounds trite
Like paisley on a bow tie
But patterns and bow ties
Bring order to the madness—
Also hamburgers, French fries
Ponytails and Snake Eyes.
He came to this place
Where the music was stuck—
Records displaying
Yellowed faces
Songs replaying
Grooves worn low
Weary, dull and much too slow.
Going backward
Isn’t really his thing
But there came a day
When his soul melted
Slipped through his lungs
Leaked and oozed
Puddled around the soles of his shoes.
Forward
No longer
Was an option for him—
What was he supposed to do?
Walk away, a shell of a man
Empty but for the wind
Whistling through?
He stood
Until noon traveled around him
Draped over the moon
Darkness descended,
Then fell his soul
Standing stuck
He heard the rattling of a rancid truck.
“Move aside,”
Said a man
Who smelled like Linus looks
Plus the tan lines of a garbage man,
“You’re in my way,
and what is this filth
at your feet?”
Accustomed to the dross
Of the city streets
With fetid hands the garbage man
Began to lift the spilt soul
Which was running into the ditch but,
“Wait!,”
Cried the empty man.
“That is not junk
though it lacks the glow
of gold
please leave it here
with me
it is all I have
if the truth is told.”
“All you have?”
Laughed the man
With the smell of human waste
On his hands,
“Then pick it up.”
Then came the second truth,
“I can’t.”
“I need your help,”
The wind spun around his tongue
Then played the space
Between his ribs
And his lungs
Like a concerto for weakening
Flesh and bone.
“Damn it all,”
The collector of trash replied
As he bent at the waist
To clean up the spill
That rolled down the hill
Before it crusted, caked and dried
Under the heat of the sun.
“I’ll put it in your pocket
now move along
get something to eat
there is a diner
across the street
that serves the lost
and the weak.”
And so, this is how he came
To the place echoing with the past—
The jukebox, the pearls
Where nothing was meant to last—
Fate brought him low
Then brought him here
To face the time where it all began
(Thanks to the garbage man).
“I don’t understand,”
He thought to himself
Then said it out loud
As his eyes rolled around
Searching for some logic
He could grip
Or some algorithm
He could apply to the script.
And then
Entered a ghost
With matted hair
On the sides of his head
Coming out of his ears,
A limp in his knee and
Teeth glowing green.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,”
Said the empty man
“Tough shit,”
Said the apparition
Blunt in his delivery and
Over dramatic
In his long flowing livery.
“Do you have a cigarette?”
Coughed the ghost
To which the live one replied,
“Do you always start with small talk?
I don’t mean to gawk but
your presence and general
demeanor are starting to piss me off.”
“You are here for a reason
and so am I
we need to get some things straight
before it’s too late
for you.
As you can see
it’s already too late for me.”
The beginning and the end
Sounded like a riddle
But somewhere in the middle
The living man
Recognized the voice,
“Dad?”
He squinted and then stuttered.
“No shit,”
Said the ghost and then
Once more,
“Do you have a cigarette?”
The living man
Almost fell to the floor
“Here, one of my last four.”
They sat in a booth,
The jukebox began to croon
They ordered hotdogs with ketchup
Had no forks
Cut their food with a spoon,
“I don’t mean to pry
but why have you come?”
“I met her here in 1952
we were both too young
to know what to do
so we loved and had fun
and then she had you
I thought of staying
but I couldn’t follow through.”
They sipped coke through a straw
To fill the long pause,
“Again, I wonder
why are you here?”
The ice clinked
In the ghost’s tall curvy glass,
“I know I was an ass
I feel kind of bad
I heard you needed me there
but I didn’t know—
shit—
it was hard to stay away
and hard to stay
I wanted to say . . .”
A pause.
And a tightening of the throat
Both the man and the ghost
Turned and squirmed,
“But why today?”
Asked the living son
Who wanted to run but chose to stay.
“Before I go to my final space
I was given the gift
once more
to see your face
and written there
I saw your hopelessness—
it rendered my journey motionless.”
“Is that when my soul
dripped all the way out?”
The ghost whispered back,
“That wasn’t your soul
it was fear and self-doubt
and I couldn’t help but
notice my name
on the puss that spilled out
so I used my airy powers
to stop your feet
with the little time I have left
I wanted to meet
in case my song repeats
after I’m gone.”
The air was still
Atmosphere heavy
Like before a storm
The ground felt shaky
And covered with worms
Snakes, anteaters and obese germs.
“I took a bit of you
and left too much of me
dropped you in a hole
of anonymity
no sure identity
as is given by a dad
and when you reached for me
your hand collapsed
empty
confused
your confidence slid—
but hear me now:
you are the best thing
I ever did.”
The living man
Felt a peace begin to grow
In a place he did not know
Existed before today
Above his ribs, above his lungs
Where scabs were hung
Replaced with Band-Aids.
“I didn’t know
and I have a lot of questions
but I feel your time is fleeting
so I will ask only one
why wait
so late
to have this meeting?”
“Time is made of seconds and of hours
each tick devours each tock
as we ignore the face of the clock
take for granted the breath
and selfishly hold the seasons
in vaults of the mind we keep locked
for prideful reasons.
But I tell you,
my son,
you are not
hopeless
I see your shine
and as long as you are living
there is still
time
so live
and be the you that is
free
of the weight of me
and my stupidity,
I am sorry.”
Then the ghost
He didn’t believe in
Vanished
To whence he came
But left a ray of something
Maybe hope
And the jukebox continued to play.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026 (updated)
Tag: AmWriting
Poem: And She Flew
Currents of wind
Grasping blue
From the sky
Mixing colors—
Translucent white
Floating by
In puffs
Like smoke
But water
Cascading
Masquerading
As clouds, drifting down
To rest upon
The ocean’s top
Atop the undercurrents
Pulling dark and light
Together
In a haze
Under the phase
Of the moon
Where fullness
Steers the darkness
From the light.
At night the sense of
Flight
Alights
In dreams and hopes
A knotted rope
Hangs from the stars
And swings
As she sings
Like a bird
Whose song is sung
Carelessly
Without thought
She calls into the night
Filling it
From empty
To bright
And falls into
The space where
Downwind caresses
Upwind lifts
And buoyancy calls her
Higher still.
As hummingbirds swing
Creatures below
Sting
With venom held
Inside teeth
Red with the catching
Stories repeat
Through dust and mold
Dark with lies
Whispered inside
By unseen spies
Who feed on souls
Who fill the roles
Like actors
Paid to play
Unable to reach
The heart
And open—
Unfold
Like art.
The ones below
Whose wings were clipped
Set a scheme
Narrow as a
Tightrope
A balance beam
A trap
Set with bait
And they waited
Inside a box
Designed to promise
The only way
Into hope
From hopelessness—
To pull her down
To steal her crown
A crucible
Of fire
Inside folded walls
Where stories
Cease to be told.
She flapped her wings
Tilted her head
Toward the earth
Wondered
Then wandered
Through the expanse
Where freedom
Takes its chance
On little birds
Such as she
She caught a breeze
Saw her reflection
In the sea
Caught a glimpse
Of her worth
And floated down
To the cardboard flaps
Of the box
The dark ones
Moved
Like worms
The kind of worms
Eaten by birds.
It looked easy enough
Fold the second flap
Then the first
And follow the way
They had planned
To be kept
From the sky
From the breeze
From the warmth of the sun
The turn of the season
From the spring
That would
Enchant her
Like a lover
Enhance her
With colors
Vibrant
Breathing
Beating
With life
To romance her.
“No,” she thought
And then—
“No,” she said
The comfort of that dark
Is stark
The safety of that space
Is small
A quiet that settles
For an hour
Sweet at first
Then turning
She felt it
And knew it
And chose—
She rose
And she flew
And she flew.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Come Visit Me on Substack
Hello friends,
I wanted to let you know that I’ve also been writing over on Substack. That publication is called Necessary Whispers, and it’s a bit more casual than what I tend to post here.
I just began a small series called 20-Today. The idea is simple: I write one poem or observation each day while I’m in motion — at the gym or on a trail — and I stop at twenty minutes.
That’s the only rule.
After spending much of this past year writing through heavier subjects, I’m turning toward something lighter. Writing simply for the joy of it!
If you’re curious, I’d love to have you join me there.
Here’s the link:
https://substack.com/@jillszoowilson
As always, thank you for reading, wherever you are.
❤️
Jill
The Wait
He arrived early.
He always arrived early. It gave him time to rehearse the version of himself he planned to be. The diner sat off the highway with wood paneling darkened by decades of smoke and winter. A Budweiser mirror hung behind the counter. The jukebox near the bathrooms blinked in patient pinks and greens, waiting for quarters.
He chose the booth against the window. The vinyl was cracked in two places and repaired with strips of clear tape that had yellowed over time. He slid in, set his keys on the table, and checked his watch. The red numbers glowed briefly against his wrist before fading back to black.
7:42.
He trusted the red glow. It felt decisive.
The waitress, whose hair was sprayed into a shape that both defied and paid tribute to gravity, poured coffee into a thick white mug without asking. “You waiting on someone?” she said, already knowing the answer.
“Yeah,” he replied, with a smile he practiced in rearview mirrors.
He adjusted the sleeve of his Members Only jacket. He pressed the edge of the paper placemat flat with his palm. The placemat advertised a local car dealership and smelled faintly of ink and grease. Outside the window, the parking lot held his car and one pickup truck that had been there since he arrived.
He imagined her walking in.
He imagined the bell over the door ringing once. He imagined not looking up immediately. He imagined letting her cross the room before lifting his eyes, as if her arrival were incidental and not the center of his evening.
He lifted the mug. The coffee was hot enough to require patience. Steam rose and vanished.
The door did not open.
7:58.
Maybe she was late.
Traffic collects where it pleases. A woman might linger at her kitchen counter, turning a ring around her finger. She might rehearse the first sentence and discard it. The evening could still be intact, only delayed.
The door did not open.
The first flicker of heat came when the clock above the counter clicked to 8:00, and the jukebox changed its lights. He felt it low in his chest, the way a swallowed word lingers. He realized he was counting the seconds between passing headlights in the parking lot. One. Two. Three. The gap stretched longer each time, like the space between lightning and thunder when the storm is blowing away.
He folded his hands on the table. He pressed his thumb against the rim of the mug to steady a tremor he refused to acknowledge.
The booth across from him remained empty.
The fire began quietly.
It gathered itself first, narrow and deliberate, like a man straightening his tie before stepping into a room. The flame rose from the center of him in a single, disciplined line, bright without frenzy. It kept its posture. It traced the length of his body with precision, as though even humiliation preferred form. The vinyl held. The napkin lay flat. The sugar caddy caught the light and gave nothing away. The fire belonged to him and to no other surface.
He did not look around.
He knew what it meant.
It was the heat of being visible without being chosen. It was the temperature of a man seated in plain sight while the woman he waited for occupied some other evening entirely.
He slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and felt the soft crush of a Marlboro pack. He considered lighting one. He imagined the smoke blending with whatever rose from him. He left the pack where it was. It might smell more like nicotine and less like Stetson.
8:17.
He could leave.
He could stand, slide a five-dollar bill beneath the saucer, and nod at the waitress as though something had come up. He could step into the night before anyone calculated how long he had been there. He could revise the story later. He could say he changed his mind first.
Instead, he stayed.
He let the fire narrow him.
It burned through the scene he had rehearsed on the drive over. The way she would tuck her hair behind her ear. The way she would say his name as if it surprised her. The way the first silence between them would feel charged instead of awkward. Each imagined moment flared and collapsed, bright and brief.
The waitress wiped down the counter with a cloth that smelled faintly of bleach and Ranch dressing. A man in a trucker cap fed a quarter into the jukebox and selected a song that crackled before finding its melody.
The booth across from him held its vacancy with composure.
He understood then that absence makes an entrance of its own. It sits across from you and asks nothing. It leaves you to supply every explanation.
The heat climbed higher.
He felt it behind his eyes, where pride waits. He felt it in his throat, where apologies gather. He felt it in the small, involuntary tightening of his jaw.
He closed his eyes.
Behind his eyelids, color pressed and thinned, as if light were searching for a seam. The closed door no longer mattered. The parking lot no longer held narrative weight. What remained was the outline of himself, suspended in brightness, and the steady recognition that nothing outside him required explanation.
The fire thinned slowly, like steam from cooling coffee.
He opened his eyes.
He lifted the mug and drank what remained. The coffee had cooled into the color of old pennies. A bill lay beneath the saucer like a quiet offering. He stood and drew his palms down the front of his jacket, smoothing it as though pressing the last ember flat.
The bell above the door rang when he pushed it open. Just once.
“Yes,” he murmured. “That’s right.”
The night received him in its thin winter air. Gasoline, frost, distant highway. His breath moved cleanly now.
Inside the diner, nothing smoldered. The booth remained intact. The coffee cup cooled into porcelain silence.
The ash had settled elsewhere.
It lined his lungs. It sifted softly behind his ribs. It marked the place where waiting once stood.
He crossed the parking lot lighter by one imagined future.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Poem: Lucy, After
History prefers its geniuses solemn.
Preferably male.
Preferably seated.
Preferably holding a cigar—
not a cigarello
between long red fingernails.
Instead—
a woman with hair like an emergency flare.
Tell me:
who approved that color?
Which committee of grey
signed off on scarlet?
She slips on grapes.
The floor does not conspire.
Gravity does what gravity has always done.
The miracle is timing.
A conveyor belt advances chocolates
toward frenzy.
She does not manage the machinery.
She collaborates with it.
Is this not a form of authorship?
To be devoured publicly
and still shape the rhythm?
Another spoonful.
The vowels lose confidence.
A nation repeats the error
faithfully.
Behind the laughter—
what?
A pen moving.
A contract reconsidered.
A chair dragged two inches closer to the head of the table.
Two inches is nothing.
Two inches is history.
The cigars call her difficult.
Smoke prefers obedience.
Fire prefers oxygen.
Which one endures?
The camera adored her.
Which is to say
it surrendered.
Or did she surrender first—
learning its angles,
its appetite,
the exact duration of a silence
before an audience inhales?
Meanwhile, another actress waits
in a hallway that smells faintly of carpet glue
and compromise.
How long has she been there?
Since childhood?
Since the first “maybe next time”?
Lucy opens the door.
The actress who had trimmed her ambition
to fit inside the cigars’ shadows
discovers a window.
Somewhere, years later,
a woman walks into a room
and does not think to apologize.
How does permission travel?
Through blood?
Through rumor?
Through reruns?
The grapes are now wine.
The pratfall loops.
The Martian is still loitering
on the windowsill.
Was she a clown?
An executive?
A wife staging chaos while drafting order?
Yes.
Is solemnity the only costume
genius may wear?
If so,
why did the room tilt
when she leaned?
She falls.
She rises.
The laughter echoes.
The chairs remain turned
toward hers.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Poem: Concerto for Springtime and Squirrel
Spring does not arrive in ribbons.
It comes with a throat full of weather.
The sky lowers itself
until rooftops seem to hold it up.
Rain begins without ceremony—
a rehearsal for drowning
that never quite succeeds.
On the oak’s blackened spine
a squirrel emerges,
fur slicked to its quick, astonished body.
It pauses as though the world
has just been repainted mid-sentence.
Green—
not the polite green of greeting cards,
but the kind wrung from the earth
by pressure.
Grass leans forward, fluorescent with rumor.
Moss burns along the stones.
Even the bark darkens into something
nearly blue.
The squirrel descends headfirst,
a punctuation mark with claws,
tail arched like a question
the storm declines to answer.
Water pearls along its whiskers.
It blinks, and the yard rearranges itself.
Every leaf appears newly sworn in.
Every puddle holds a duplicate sky
shivering with revision.
Somewhere thunder practices authority.
The squirrel does not applaud.
It runs—
a brief streak of umber against electric green—
then stops again,
as if suspecting
that sight itself has molted.
What has changed?
The tree remains a tree.
The fence, a fence.
Yet color has stepped forward
and declared independence.
The storm insists.
The earth complies.
And the squirrel,
small curator of the soaked morning,
presses its paws into the vivid grass
as though testing
whether the brightness
will stain.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Poem: Subsequent Kingdom
The hour came
When she no longer knew
Where to stand and so
She sat
In the middle of a ground
Hollowed of movement
And sound.
Wrapped her arms around
The tops of her knees,
Squeezed and held
Herself in a balance
That felt like a trance.
Faded memories danced,
Then turned into smoke,
Lifted up
And away—
Transformed day into
Night,
Where what was bright
Had taken flight.
There was no way
To know for sure
Where her plight would
Take her
Or send her next
But to a dream—
So she slept and found
That nightmares abound,
But dreams are the things
Worth stepping into.
And so
She slept
And she stepped.
She entered—
Her feet soaked in regret,
A substance heavier than she knew.
Underfoot,
Leaves crunching,
Small souls darting,
Dripping mysteries and dew.
She stood in a hidden forest
Where light was shattered
By shadow—
The sun trickling
Down tree trunks
Until devoured by shade.
In this place—
Where light and dark collide—
Life breathed
Without fear of
Being censured
Or scrutinized.
Her hands trembled,
Adding vibration to the breeze
Shaken loose from unseen clouds,
Wrapping around her skin
And seeping past
Petrified courage within.
Location undisclosed—
To she and he and me.
Lost inside—
No fear of being unfound,
No regret of being drowned
Between the monotony there
And this rising cacophony of sound—
Increasing swells surrounding,
Like a riptide racing outward,
Tearing her loose from security,
Crowning her
With confounding obscurity.
A subsequent Queen
Bowed low—
In coronation,
Surrendered to unpredictability,
Relinquished proposals
And control.
Her scepter raised,
Exposing the cavity
Of beating heart and soul,
Warring against
Encroaching enemies
Threatening to bring her low.
She breathed.
She sighed.
She caught the eyes
Of a creature drawing near.
In him—a revelation
She held dear,
Yet sensed she should not go near.
Stuck
Between stimulus
And choice—
As thick as tangled underbrush below,
As wide as these grounds
She did not know—
She stood still.
A stabbing thrill
Entered her side,
Some kind of alive
Breaching the tenderness
Of the space
Where her secrets hide.
She lowered her scepter,
Compelled to disavow
The tenacity of her presence here—
In a place
Perhaps she should fear.
There he stood,
Quite near.
Treading upon this undisclosed ground
Gave air to her footsteps,
And she, like a child,
Laid her focus
At the feet of he
And of mysteries
Surrounding her there—
She worshiped at the altar
Of her long-forgotten
Sense of wonder.
Unexpected places.
Unimagined faces.
Unforeseen encounters
Reminded her that life
Is an unpredictable force—
Impossible to bridle
By will alone.
“Let it be,”
Said she—
With an indignant air
Of possibility,
A heaviness in her lungs
Making it difficult to breathe—
Yet she breathed,
And she sighed,
And she moved into his realm,
Stuck her fingers in,
And pried him open—
Revealing his positives
To her negatives.
A Pandora’s Box
Of magnetism—
Cataclysmic exposure,
Volcanic disclosure—
Blasted through their chests
And up through
The tops of the trees.
A burst of what was unseen
Careened,
Trading winds
With all that was seen—
A hurricane of chemistry,
Unforeseen,
Destroying the routine
Like a machine
Come to life
With a sharpened pulse.
She realized too late
That being crowned
In her dream
Unbound her stream
Of waking consciousness—
Stuck now inside her sleep,
Between worlds,
Stewing in a concoction
Of waking memory
And present dream.
She remembered when
She had a choice—
When she sat
With her arms wrapped
Around her knees,
A breeze of normalcy
Blowing across
Tear-stained cheeks:
“The tears I knew
Were softer
Than these torrents
Where light and dark
Steal what was—
What is—
And twist the present
With what they undo.”
The hour returned.
She no longer knew
Where the path of her then
Met the path of her now.
So she sat with her crown,
Awaiting sundown—
Her sleeping life
Mingling within
Her subsequent kingdom.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, updated 2026
Poem: Hall of Dreams
Within me
(one)
are many.
I stand before
a hall of dreams—
experiences arranged
like exhibits:
fair trades,
unbalanced ones,
who I was
and who I could not be.
I sit in the gallery
of my own imagining,
hovering above
movement and stagnation,
searching for pattern.
Logic keeps me safe
while everything mingles.
The projector clicks.
Slow at first.
Then steady—
like a train pulling memory
down its track.
Flicker.
Light.
I am lulled.
I understand the staying
and the leaving,
the cleaving,
the fall.
Shadows drip
between choice
and consequence—
wax from a tongue
that once burned
with lies.
Faces I trusted
tilt in the light.
Spies in their eyes.
Or was it mine
that misread?
I thought I knew.
At least
I trusted.
I replay.
Hover above.
Detached.
Objective.
What questions
should I have asked?
The kiss.
It split me.
Once one—
now two.
I built a case
for future disgrace,
called it truth,
called it depth,
called it destiny.
But you only tilted me—
then let me go.
What I named vast
was narrow.
What I called deep
was small.
The descent—
mine.
I wanted you
to speak truth.
Instead
I heard
what I wanted.
Weak.
Yes.
Deceived—
by myself.
Within me
(one)
are many—
but now
one fewer.
I lay the hall down.
Let the projector darken.
Offer illusion
back to silence.
And keep
what is real.
© Jill Szoo Wilson
Casual Impact
By Jill Szoo Wilson
One cold, misty evening in January, I was sitting on my couch, scrolling through a website that lists job openings in my area. I was looking for a part-time position to run in tandem with my teaching assignment for the Spring semester. While my teaching load for the following school year included an overload between courses and directing a play, my Spring semester had quietly unraveled. Three classes had dwindled to one due to enrollment. Then that single class was enrolled at half capacity, which meant I would receive half of my pay.
I was still just as eager to begin the semester. The work itself had not diminished. But I needed to supplement what had quietly disappeared.
Anyone who has lived inside contract work in higher education knows its strange duality. The work is beautifully fulfilling and wildly unpredictable. During the first decade after graduate school, I averaged five classes per semester and often directed a show or coached a forensics team. I taught at two major universities, one surrounded by fields and open sky, the other pressed into the pulse of the city. On any given week, I might hear speeches about crop rotation and cattle auctions, then read papers on bioethics or constitutional law. I moved between farm boots and briefcases without leaving the classroom.
That panoply of subjects, people, and cultures has been a jewel box in my life. I did not take it lightly.
Two weeks ago, I chose to leave higher education. Not because it failed me. Not because I lacked joy there. A casual couch scroll opened a door I had not been seeking. A senior writing role at a large nonprofit ministry drifted across my screen. The position was full-time. I was searching for part-time. I still do not know why it appeared before me.
Yet as I read the description, something in my stomach came alive. It felt like excitement braided with fear. The kind of recognition that arrives before logic can intervene. A little too good to be true.
So I applied.
After a rigorous interview process, I received the phone call that shifted the trajectory of my career. As of today, I have completed my first week as a professional writer. I will also be able to weave in my love of performance by coaching actors and eventually directing in-house video and on-screen advertising projects.
Gratitude feels too small a word. But it is the truest one I have.
If you have followed my writing for any length of time, you know that my life detonated in 2020. There have been extraordinary highs and devastating lows since then. I will not rehearse those chapters here. I will say this: 2020 taught me that as long as we can breathe into the palms of our hands, we have choices. And life will change.
Sometimes it explodes. You hear the pieces fly overhead and crash down around you like shards of nuclear glass.
More often, life alters you quietly. It presses into the most meaningful parts of who you are becoming with a force so subtle you almost miss it. Sometimes change comes in the middle of a storm on the high seas, with sharks circling below. Other times it arrives with a sip of chamomile tea and the small square of space your finger occupies on a trackpad.
In the meantime, God. Always God. Orchestrating. Allowing the good, the bad, and the heartbreaking to fashion you into who you are becoming, at both the cellular level and in the broad strokes of His artistry.
Over the past year, I wrote more than I had ever written before. As that season began to close, I realized how much I would miss the act itself. The shaping of sentences. The long wrestle toward clarity. That realization drew me toward this new role. Especially once I saw that I could invert the hierarchy I had lived within for years. Writing would become the vocation. Theatre would become the ministry.
I have learned to keep my eyes awake. Not merely open, but awake to the possibilities of being alive inside a life that refuses to remain fixed. We cling to routines, to jobs, to people, to time itself. We hold them tightly as we dodge and sometimes integrate the slings and arrows that fly across this world. Yet life keeps moving. And so must we.
I will end with this.
Yesterday evening, I was hiking through a wood I know well. As sunset approached, the shadows lengthened and the creatures that run across the forest floor and the birds that alight above grew restless. It was loud. Urgent. Like an airport terminal at dusk. Everyone coming and going, crossing and recrossing the same narrow paths.
I stopped.
My stillness felt amplified against the constant motion around me. Above me stood tall, thriving trees preparing themselves for Spring. At my sides lay trunks that had fallen long ago, softened by time and weather. Growth and decay in the same frame. Arrival and departure breathing the same air.
And in the midst of it, I thought, This is life.
And it is beautiful.
Poem: Surrender
He found me in the middle of a war
Or maybe I should say
We found one another
The way two sleepy people—
Heads hanging down
Looking at the ground—
Bumps heads and
Mutter softly,
“Excuse me.”
I behind my shield
Holding to the leather strap
With knuckles white
Hands calloused where my grip
Could not afford to wane
Despite the pain
Of taking blows
And whispering low,
“How much longer?”
He to the left of his sword
Filled with ink
Black and dripping
Onto the page
Bleeding through
Pigments of rage and
Unanswered fear
Composing his mantra,
“What purpose here?”
We met on the battlefield
Surprised and confused
To find company
In the midst of assumed
Isolation
Comforted and ashamed
Of the devastation
We wore like scars and tattoos,
“Come no closer.”
Lucky for me
His eyes were exposed
Unprotected and flashing life
Like a flickering neon sign
Hanging in a window
Passed by thousands
Noticed by few
The shades drawn tight but,
“Open.”
Lucky for him
My grip was weakening
Armor slipping
He saw that I was breathing
Still awake but
Dirty from the fight
Ashamed of the darkness
But longing to ignite,
“Alive.”
We lifted our hands
Almost at the same time
Palms facing the other
Skin cracked and dry
Touching to confirm
Poetry written in the sky
In the form of sunshine
Warm and personified,
“I am here.”
I lowered my defense
He drew something new
Between my mind and my breast
We gazed and we grew
I, he, we began to smile
Said too much
Then nothing at all
Fear melting
Trust erecting a bridge to,
“Surrender.”
© Jill Szoo Wilson
Jill Szoo Wilson 