Two Poems by Manuela

“Mindfulness”

Often, I forget to remember:

I’m trying to be more aware

of my surrounding

of my ever present brain

and its shenanigans

that ride me on repetitive routs

patterns I try to eschew

kind of like letting go

of an old foe

I surf the wave

of conditioned reflex

unaware how i share

my space with all around me

all of the all including the fall

from grace, before I could

even walk or talk

so many years of restrained tears

meet me on the verge of a surge

of emotion, from which I attempt

to glide astride

and ocean of salt and brine

that i made more

so very long ago

Awareness, that beast I

have tried to repress

now wants to vault out

and no longer behave

before I cave in

to an monstrous rave.

“Abnegation”

I stood on a tall great wall

100 feet above the ground

and I felt wobbly.

I tried to keep my balance

like a drunken ballerina

on a tight rope.

A burly phantom climbed up with a ladder

and I floated over to pull me down,

but lingered on the ledge of oblivion;

he threw me a ropelike a lasso, but missed.

To fall or to stall

the inevitable until

it came naturally?

He threw the rope, again

though not like a lasso, this time

and I teetered as it reached me;

it was a long way down!

But I grabbed the rope

and held on tight;

Then I fought to survive;

Then I wanted to be alive

to give abstinence a chance

without a brooding or rueful

backward glance.

I clutched on to salvation

and climbed down the ladder

one rung at a time

and out of the clouds

to descend to a less fickle world.

On the last rung, I jumped into the phantom's arms

and almost toppled him.

All at once, gratitude sprang up

and carried us both.