Marybeth Rua-Larsen
Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
He didn’t say those words, though something close.
Forgiveness is the key. A mountain made of
anger roils to a volcano. No
amount of yoga breathes it free. I’ve paid
for years of therapy to master it,
and progress? Mine is slow. I’m one to hoard.
I keep it all, from books to shoes to nits
I have to pick to slights that cut like swords
to kicks and blows no vengeance can assuage.
You’d never know to look at me. I sleep
standing and meditate more than a sage,
yet still I push my stone uphill and weep.
I pour my poison, drink it by degrees.
My saving grace? I hurt no one but me.
Marybeth Rua-Larsen won the Luso-American Fellowship for the DISQUIET International Literary Program in Lisbon, Portugal in 2017 and was awarded a Hawthornden International Fellowship in Scotland in 2019. She has recent work published in Orbis, Magma, Shot Glass Journal, Crannóg, Gramarye and The Blue Nib. Her chapbook, Nothing In-Between, was published by Barefoot Muse Press.