Talking to Myself

In our individual lives, we each find ourselves at war.

We go off into our solitary battles armed only with ourselves against none other than ourselves.

Such contradictions we carry

We wage war in search of peace

And it takes enormous sacrifice and often, enormous loss

My own world has exploded, reformed, imploded, and then obliterated in such a short time

I have found myself at the highest of peaks

I have found myself at the lowest of valleys

Sometimes moving with a destination in mind- sometimes moving with no direction at all

And that war is ongoing- an ever-present political turmoil in my mind

But now I remember how blessed I am

Blessed by my struggle

Blessed to have the power to make choices-

to makes mistakes

to make myself proud

to choose to love my struggle

until the day I can finally learn how to leave the war behind

Kristi Pena