Reckoning by Anna Goodman Herrick

Reckoning

Anna Goodman Herrick

You have to know you're enough.
And you have to remember.
Then,
you have to
forget
and tumble into the soft darkness
and let it hold you
Sometimes,
if you're lucky
it will whisper
to you
secrets:
like,
this is happening
you are alive
(even if)
(just barely)
and when you are on the edge of mercy I do
in that pillow embrace
of that god
that you have called pain
you have to let it toss you
back into the earthen world
and lay you on its ground
until you say
I do
I want to be here
and this time
I mean it.

More from Anna Goodman Herrick ↓

* @annagoodmanherrick on Instagram

* Her book A Speaker Is a Wilderness is out now.

You can listen to me read Anna Goodman Herrick’s poem, The Whole Story, over on Instagram @rembrandts.cure

Submissions are open. If you have a poem you want me to read on the podcast, now’s the time.

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