It's not easy at all.

It's easy to breathe, to exist.
Living? It's hard as hell.  It takes courage to show up day after day,  to keep pushing to be where we are, to hold on to dreams, to not be beaten by brick walls around the way. It takes a special kind of strength to hold on to innocence and do things out of a good heart. It takes strength to not become the one who is bitter when compared,  as we all do, to the success of others.

It takes fortitude to live with and through pain, and failures, and the realisations of how truly limited we are; truly needy, and yet, truly alone. It takes a hidden treasure to walk with life through days when you suffer from a dry soul.

It's the simplest thing, and the hardest thing.

they never found her body. the man who worked in the stall nearby reported seeing her walk into the sea. he thought it was strange that she was all alone, and she looked entranced.

Later they would find leftover cans of beer in her car; cigarette butts in her room. a video left on her laptop of her singing, 'its times like these we learn to live again'. pieces of writing, of poetry that she had written at different times through the years. a picture of her smiling.

1.

the hurting person
the hurting teacher
pushes the sticky welcome of the floor away
defying gravity
and with the crumbling remains of debris,
puts one foot in front of another.
smiles,  adding an extra cheer in her voice
overcompensating for the deep hollow echoing inside
hurting teachers; hurting parents, hurting workers everywhere

we build with blood weeping from our broken parts.

tell them i was broken
tell them....i was pieces of a broken pot
but for all the brokenness; all the empty pieces and jagged edges, all the bleeding of the substance i tried to hold
i did my best
to love
to embrace
to have a life of meaning
with all my broken pieces