The Lost

June 30, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, CCC, Cult, despair, Flash Fiction, Micro-fiction, Photo prompt, Rescue, Trauma, Tyranny 9 Comments

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It wasn’t the hunger. Or the cold. Or the worry that their bruises won’t have time to heal before another layer made lace of the colors on their skin, to serve a lesson in horror and morals for their kin.

It was, more than anything, the despair.

The utter loneliness within.

The feeling that there will never be another way to be. Another way to live. Another place to be.

For the Commune was The Law, and The Law was The Faith, and The Faith was the whip and the rope and the cellar’s dirt floor.

The Law was everything.

Until.

That day when someone – who some later said was of the lost who were forbidden to be let back in – breached the fences. Ignored the “No Entry” sign circling the fields. Climbed through the grasses.

With a lens. And later, with the law.

For Crispina’s Crimson’s Creative Challenge

Their Own Continuity

March 28, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: connection, Continuity, Current events, despair, encouragement, hope, Micro-fiction, Perspective, Poetry, Reality, Relationships, Weekend Writing Prompt 11 Comments

Photo: Yunming Wang on Unsplash

He said the world’s come to an end.

“Not quite,” she noted,

“For it keeps revolving.”

Her hand stayed warm

On his chest.

“Uninterrupted sun and set,

The dawn and birth,

Are their own continuity.”

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Continuity in 35 words

Her Song To Sing

August 10, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Professional Development, Reflections, Speech Language Pathology, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Courage, despair, healing, New Beginnings, Opportunity, Poetry, Rebirth, Self Discovery, Song, Trauma, Weekend Writing Prompt 34 Comments

Photo: Jorgen Haland via Unsplash

And so she stood

Among the rocks

That piled,

A pyre of life’s debris,

Like so much refuse

Of what had

Once been

Beloved goals.

And so she sang,

The words still raw

Against her lips,

Her livid

Scar of

Soul.

The song, she knew,

Was more than

A sum

Of her whole,

And beyond any meaning

Voice could

Hold.

And so she stood

Amidst the wreckage

Of her faith

Atop the middling shards

Of hope.

And she recalled

The seeds long planted

In her core,

Beneath the thickets

Of lost calls,

Awaiting, perhaps,

This very annihilation

As invitation

To grow bold.

(Dedicated to all who are feeling broken. May they find the seeds within their core. And grow bold.)

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Song in 102 words

Hold your ground …

July 8, 2014Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Quotes, Reflections, Trauma and Development Tags: compassion, despair, empathy, Hate, healing, Hold Your Ground, NaamaYehuda, Peace, Quote, War, Wound healing 5 Comments

These days, with much strife in the world and overmuch rhetoric of fear and hatred, it can seem easy to feel pulled to lash out, to “get it through the thick skulls” of those who are supposedly different/less-than/not-as-right. It may seem justifiable to use violence: emotional, verbal, physical, sexual, religious, political. It may seem like “this is the only language these people (insert different/less-than/not-as-right populace here) understand.”

Frustration breeds anger. Helplessness breeds desperate acts. Rage breeds blindness.

Let us not wound others in attempts to heal/correct/make-right/avenge/justify.

Hold your ground for kindness.

There is plenty pain in this world without adding to it. More wounded people will not a healing make. There is plenty drama without conjuring more of it. More despairing people will not hope bring.

Hold your ground for care.

May there be a path to true-heart-reason. Not to ‘fairness’ maybe, but to humanity. Not to ‘justice’ maybe, but to compassion. Not to ‘paying back’ but to gaining calm. Not to ‘avenging’, but to taking a step toward finding a common ground. One we can all hold on to … a healing span.

May there be less wounding. Wounds already borne will not heal faster if more are inflicted. There will be no less rage if ire remains amplified. Fires will not be put out by constant dose of fear or hate or it-is-their-fault-that-I-have-to-do-it. No more. Alienation. No more. Harm.

Let us all, hold our ground. In open hearts. In listening. In understanding. It is past time.

Whatever fights you are pulled to become embroiled in–personal, communal, religious, political, national, global–may you keep your feet firmly rooted in empathy. May the seedlings of care grow strong and fine. May we patch up the hurts to foster quickest healing, and may we carry hope and light, for they are the menders of all hearts.