Three Poems by Robyn Joy

Robyn Joy is a long-time WFR participant, and her work has appeared frequently on our blog. Here, she shares three recent poems. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did. Thanks, Robyn!

HERE’S WHERE I’M AT RIGHT NOW

I’m listening – humbly.

            I’m sharing what I learn and what I know as I go

            in an attempt to be of service without getting it wrong.

There are so many abundant trees though

 and I don’t know which apple to choose 

How I am

What I am eating

What my cat is doing

How my family’s health is

  all of this is perhaps less significant

            but still continuing

            while moms are screaming for the loss of their babies

            to another act of violence 

            that I don’t even know how to talk about

And I am scared too

How much more can I absorb before I shut down?

How can I be a good student

            and a good ally

            and a good caretaker

            all at once?

Maybe it is just a matter of adaptability.

June 3, 2020

IT WASN'T MY FIRST CHOICE

It wasn't my first choice, 

to be so weird and awkward.

In fact, I tried to exorcise out the weird

 in a series of rites and passages -

  candles lit

  effigies burned.

But there I was

 every. single. time.

Silencing lively conversations,

with an odd observation,

 trying to like something that was normal

  but not really getting it.

In adolescence, I guess this didn't hold true.

"Weird" was a badge to be earned.

But the ones I was mirroring

had more clout than I could ever hope for,

which arguably made me 

the actual weirdo in this equation,

and the so called "weirdos" the normies,

depending on your perspective.

It's boring isn't it?

Placating to an idea 

rather than having our own.

Even as a real live adult,

I still fall into that dull hole sometimes.

So mundane I might just 

lay around in it for days 

before I realize where I am.

But the candles from the rituals still burn 

and if I squint, 

I can still see the effigy's flicker.

June 10, 2020

WHAT IF I’M WRONG

What if I’m wrong

   and what I just said makes the world explode?

   Or what if it implodes instead?

Which hurts more?

What if I make the wrong choice,

and then you stop loving me?

  Or you keep on loving me, 

because that’s the right thing to do,

but you secretly dislike me from now on?

What if I find out in five years

   that the very reasonable seeming decision I just made

    put my life on a trajectory far away

     from what I wanted, 

      and I can never get back

       to being comfortable and stable?

What if I am wrong about what comfort and stability are,

  and I have been wrong this whole time?

And what if finally making the RIGHT choice 

  would bring me to that place

   where everything releases 

    and I say with a big sigh

     “Oh! I get it now!”

      but because I have been 

      making a string of wrong decisions,

I will never really know what that is like?

Or what if..

  What if I DID know what it felt like

    but I wasn’t paying attention 

     and I missed it

     and now I don’t even have a chance?

Or what if it isn’t even up to me,

 and my choices are a lark,

  and it’s all going to unfold how it wants to anyway?

What if I let go of whether or not I am wrong,

  and let others be right?

June 10, 2020