The Sister Wound-- or-- Acolyte Failed

I first heard

of the sister wound

in an article on one of those dime-a-dozen new age websites,

the kind that regurgitate what I already know, on some deeper,

innate level but still need validation of

A piece likely written by a woman originally named

Sarah, who now goes by Sage, a person that like me, and maybe you,

is more satisfied by a perceived reclamation

of the present than the weariness of the past but Sarah--sorry, Sage--

(you know how hard it is to unlearn bitter truths)

writes with a heavy pen onto napkins, onto notebooks, onto carefully

manicured webpages her sing-songy tales of the burdened heart

Of a little girl lost in the churning cyclone

of maiden, mother, and crone, reaching, stretching, yearning for

a pristine, gentle hand to pull her from the noise to redirect

the eddies of woe, to show her the direction of the currents

and how to swim against the tides and lastly, to bestow her crown

upon the next goddess of the sea, holy in her power, soothing in her caress,

vast in her divinity

And Sage,

like me and maybe you, knows the legend of the goddess of the sea

and wears her mask, dances her dance, and demands offerings

as if she were the truest vision of Woman but in her own secret,

shameful knowledge, she knows Sage and Sarah are forever linked

So Sarah, drowning Sarah,

fights her way to the surface, bleeding out onto the pages of

twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercedesingatorade.com

writing pro-tips in her blood, hard earned wisdom whipped

into the whirlpools of maiden, mother, and crone,

of a rising goddess seeking direction, support, wisdom, and strength,

but met with the opposite and more--a wilted rose upon a drying stem

But yet, in all her pain, despite the winters growing colder,

even in the naivete of spring and the confusion of summer,

regardless of the fading power of autumn, the bud lifts and opens,

and though the thorns prick, often without apology,

Sage smiles, donning the crown of the goddess of the sea

Sarah-Sage caresses her freshly-struck face with her own pristine, soft hand,

reaching through the future-past to slow the Wheels of Fortune

spinning furiously into the grave, to soothe mothers, sisters,

aunties and friends who chose to spill the acrid blood

of festering wounds onto each other instead of the pages of

twinflameastrology1111aquariusrisingmercutioineightofspades.com

Sarah, the Sage, friend to my hyperfocused machinations

reaches for me through this frigid night, where I sit alone

on a porch in the dark, fuming, exhausted, desperate

trying to contain my acrid blood before it dissolves the remnants

of the stilts holding my home above the sea

but brazenly,

I peer into the tempestuousness of brain and brine

to find a tiny hand barely breaking the tension of the surface

fingertips searching for a graceful, loving touch

Sarah, my sage, figment of my darkened heart, tends to my wound

then coyly, childishly, pushes me back into the violent waters

I catch her voice along the wind, insisting that this time,

I will learn to swim