Tag: safety

They cotton woolled me,
padded me safe,
to ensure if I fell,
I wouldn’t crash,
bang, break.
 
To make sure that I was
protected by the softened cloud,
like a growing cumulus
I would travel here, there, about.
 
But always did I feel this
protection surrounding me,
a knowledge that when I’d fall
I could tangle among
branches of kind gum trees,
who would soothe me with their eucalyptus scent, 
calming, warming,
my panic flew –
it went.
 
And I am suspended,
here between heaven and earth,
it’s not so bad, I realise,
I’m surrounded by the now-dripping cotton wool
pungent with oil.
 
I appreciate those who thought it prudent to
wrap me like a child in a
tight woollen blanket,
because of this, 
the next stage of
my life I can be assured.
 
In fact, I’m more like a caterpillar
in my woven silk threads,
to my original protective layer
I’ve added to this,
 
Now I am layered, softly cushioned,
nothing can penetrate even if I allowed it in
because, quite frankly,
this is my time for healing.
 
As time passes, I feel my body grow strong,
none of this limp wrists and arms,
fragile ankles and weakened shins,
no, I am becoming something,
something more,
and suddenly the cotton wool and thread?
I have no need for these anymore.
 
I emerge heroically from my encasing,
an uproarious cry of triumph escapes my lips,
the trials and tribulations of long past
which the wool had patched
are strangely flung from my memory.
 
And here I stand,
stronger than ever before,
plights and disasters all untoward,
I will recall nothing of them
for I have moved forth,
a body no longer in a woollen cavity.

© 2020 Lauren M. Hancock. All rights reserved. 
Image by montemari from Pixabay 

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