Pain is Passing 1980-1983

Pain is passing
Rain keeps falling
Darkness slipping
Time presiding
Pressure releases
Numbness rising

Quiet footsteps
Break my silence

Shirley Smith 1980-1983

What Is This？ February 2020

I stand in awe
the joy, peace love
in my world

I run through it, I laugh in it, I dance
I talk, I yell, I cry in it
It holds me when I sleep

This, this was created out of disbelief
This was created out of pain, fear,
An aching in my throat that knows no name

A heart filled with shame
A mind full of regret
Broken pieces, shards of glass
That cut me as I walk
No way out, no way to change
Hopelessness

I marvel at the creation of my life

This is grace

Shirley Smith   2020

SOMETHING FRIGHTENING

I find something frightening
about the absence of fear.

I want to hide away
from standing out in the open.

That feeling of trust
is not to be trusted.

I stand in the forest
hoping I look like a tree.

I shrug off the feeling,
I know it's my own mind
that keeps my heart on a shelf.

I open my clenched fists
I cry to the world come and get it.

Shirley Smith January 2020

The God That I Pray To 2017

I have been awake for hours but am still camped in my bed.

The fear of the day keeps me here waiting to feel the sureness and security of Gods love.

I want to get up and act normal but I can't feel it, I'm scared, that's all I feel.

So I need help even to trust the God that I pray to. Amen.

Shirley Smith April 2017

Broken and On Fire 2016

I can’t go on anymore, not this way,
I struggle and struggle to break the surface,
I gasp and I sink, I am downing. 
From the time I was in my teens
I could  see that i was broken,  
I wanted to stop it, stop the struggle. 
I didn’t want to die, I wanted to stop fighting.  
I wanted to let go of every damn thing 
that burned by brain to a pile of ashes. 
People mistake it for cries for help, it is not 
I AM ON FIRE 
and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

The Valley 2013

I had never really solved a problem
At best I had slouched, bandaged, limped on
Postured at monsters
Whistled in the dark

Cursed myself a coward
Always wanting to scream to the heavens
Assuring myself I was almost home

Other people said it was mountains
I swear my soul never left the valley

Damn it. Damn me.


Shirley Smith 2013

A Wall 1980-1983

I built a wall
around my mind
in which there was no door

And they've tried to find an entry way
so many times before

But now they've started full attack
upon my mighty wall
and the sad part of the story is
my castles going to fall

Shirley Smith 1980-1983