April 2021
Mary McCarthy
Mmccarthy161@gmail.com
Bio Note: In this last year we’ve had to make many adjustments, meet many challenges to health and well being, challenges mental, physical and spiritual. Writing in itself has helped me through these times, as it has through many difficult times in the past. These brief poems examine a few of my old “survival strategies.”

Keeping Up

My daily ritual
morning and night
the way some start
and end their days with prayer
I count out and take
a fistful of pills
designed to keep me
smooth and uncomplaining
so I stay under the radar
blurred just enough
to pass without notice
or the energy to organize
something outrageous.
I miss those good times
before the reformation
of my private chemistry
when I could still feel
the echoes of creation
and hear the voice of God
beat in my blood.

Regrets

It all comes down on me at once
years piled up like old baggage
behind a door that finally opens
and I am too surprised
to dig my way out.
So I sit half buried
waiting for you to come and say
it doesn’t matter
these things happen
we can still get it all cleaned up
and tucked away again.
No one really remembers it
the way you do
they’re much too busy
managing their own histories
to notice your dusty old mistakes.
Don’t worry your sins
until they’re worn and tattered.
Let them go.
©2021 Mary McCarthy
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