Touch thy shorebank,
Never walk again,
For this rage sinks ships.
Catapults of flung
verbal slaughter,
Death to all who try.
Saving swimming sailors,
Pirates doomed for the dust,
Not my world, ne’er again.
For I am free,
Swam a thousand miles,
To sit safely
Within my own seas.
‘Save yourself’,
I call out,
As I point those lost
In the direction of home…
Theirs,
Not my own,
Not ever my own.
My home,
My safety,
My shelter
And space
Wasn’t ever another’s to take,
And it was here within my sense of being
All along.
Beyond sight,
Beyond reason,
Beyond reality seen and touched.
But here I sit,
Within the confines of the infinite,
Knowing, seeing, thinking and feeling…
Absolutely nothing…
Which left space…
For you to come.
My reflection,
My mirror,
My love.
A note for any reader thinking my love is a man, it is not, not now, not ever, it is the divine call, intuitive knowing, it is branches on trees, invisible breezes and ice-cold seas. It is life, it is beauty, it is death.
Source: Santuario, Ana Maria (2023). Safer Shores of Me. Faith in Change Publishing, London.
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Finding Your Own Safer Shores…
Can you capture a memory right now, one of a time and place wherein utter safety was felt? It may be with a parent, sibling, or other family member. It could be a thing you found in nature, while at sea, or even while sleeping. All experiences count, and where safety cannot be found externally right now, I urge you to seek it inside instead.
The Poetry Collection, Safer Shores of Me, was written during a healing process, one spent sitting in solitary confinement of a sort. During a time when the world screamed of danger, risk, threat and pain, there was no where to turn but to myself, sometimes that’s the way of it. The world promised me help, it did, I know that it did, but after calling a ridiculous number of helplines, being passed from here to there, being kept on hold for over 40 minutes, I simply gave up. The world promised me a help that never came, be it from a charity, from a relationship, from a parent, from anyone… but it never, not once, came…
So, I dug in, dug deep, and found what I was seeking… a sense of safety, and chose to make a commitment to preserve that safety at all costs, even where the cost was my own family and friends. Sometimes, the people around you are not safe, it may not be that they abuse you directly, perhaps they live with chronic anxiety, rage outbursts, maybe they cannot stop crying, or they dream the world is out for them all of the time and are constantly looking for enemies. Maybe you are simply invisible and utterly disconnected. Maybe, you simply belong to another kind of tribe, one you weren’t born to, but that does indeed exist in this world.
Before you can find where you belong, one MUST let go of things unbelonging, which can be tiring and result in a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, longing and loneliness. To drop the world is a big deal. To admit to not wanting a single thing that surrounds you is huge, as a matter of fact, it takes everything you’ve got to lose everything you don’t need, want or belong to. Courage is key, and it takes a heap of it to finally admit to what is safe and what is not safe, because once you do that for yourself, life will need changing, and change always demands surrender to the unknown. Don’t be sacred, you deserve to feel safe in every possible minute from herein, claim it, own it, protect and preserve it, and see what happens next…
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